Favour Borokini

THE RIGHT TO SAY NO The other day, I bumped into a group of friends who were commenting on the recent Student Union Government election activities. They remarked on the poor security as usual and how inefficient campus security was. A few things led to another and one of them told a story of how a few days ago, she was with a group of guys and one of them made advances and his friends turned on her to pressure her into accepting. One of the guys, she said mentioned how it would be very rude (and I think embarrassing) if she refused the advances of one of their “guys”. She then told us of how she had to fake a phone call before she could hurry away safely. Though she shrugged like it was no big deal and it was in fact a normal thing, I felt a pang in my heart. I knew that it was wrong. She should have been able to refuse without being afraid or faking a phone call. I am a feminist. I haven’t called myself that for a long time though. I just knew when I listened to Ms. Chimamanda Adichie talk on many occassions that I agreed with her. She seemed to make a lot of sense. She stirred up my awareness of imbalances inherent in the Nigerian society and around me. They all became so real and vivid and I began to ask questions. I’ve always been a bit of a dissenter anyway. Now as at then, I notice a certain wariness and dislike for women who called themselves feminists. I didn’t really think much of it and I considered it as just the ordinary reaction to a philosophy or way of life that differed from the norm and which would be accepted in time like say, Western education or women wearing trousers maybe. I have come to discover however that it’s not just that. It’s a system of thought that’s heavily and aggressively resistant to the thought that a woman would consider herself equal in being and status to a man – a being with agency for herself if you would. I am mostly unfazed by a lot of this kind of talk but some of it is still jarring to observe in society. A lot of definitions have been given for feminism but I’d like to aver that feminism is basically about choice. It’s about ensuring that every woman has the choice to live her life for her own benefit. These benefits could be economical, social, spiritual, academical or even physical. It’s about giving women a voice and choice. It is important to state here that every right has an implied sister-right. The right to vote for instance also means the right to not vote. Freedom of speech also means freedom not to speak. It is important to note this because for so long, women have been deprived of the full spectrum of their rights. This brings me to the title of this piece – the right to say no. Every day, somewhere in the world, a woman is being assaulted, physically and/or sexually. A cursory look at the Google search results for the words, “woman murdered while jogging” would show a revealing array of the frequency of assaults against defenseless women. In the past month, Mollie Tibbett, an American woman was killed by a man for refusing his advances. Mollie had been out jogging. Mollie’s sister has since come out to say, “Mollie was murdered because a man denied her right to say no.” Nigerian woman are so defenseless when it comes to rejecting advances or proposals from men because we live in a society where it is ingrained in us to never provoke “the man”. The man has an ego. Don’t wear dresses that would arouse him, don’t smile too freely with him lest he takes it as an invitation, don’t oppose him openly. Always cater to his interests. The society is so geared towards preserving this state of affairs about the man so much so that it eventually makes villains out of its victims. Rape victims are shamed into believing that they brought it on themselves. “You should have known”, they say. “You just don’t go out with a man and eat free food without giving anything in return” and so the woman becomes a commodity with no agency. Without the right to object, to refuse, she’s ill-used by any entitled oaf and continues to suffer silently. It’s quite saddening but this is not right. Things can be so much better. We can all rise up and defend women around us who are afraid to step out in the evenings for fear of being assaulted and taken against their wishes. We can raise our sons in the light of the knowledge that both boys and girls have equal merits and equal status. We can have a society where no one is afraid to say no without because yes is almost never the right answer. I believe in an egalitarian society where we all can say no to what we want. Do you?