Different paradigms..
There is a local paper here called The Sun (which has exactly the same logo etc as the UK tabloid). Saturday's edition had a two-page spread on the issue of 'Who owns the boobs?' Of the 15 or so young women interviewed, only one believed that her breasts were her own property. The other 14 believed their tits to be either the property of their baby, or their man, or both.
The fact that 99.99% of women here have internalised a feudal form of patriarchy, such that they think of themselves as the property (or potential property) of a man, is no surprise in what is a pre-modern, pre-industrialised society. What is more shocking is the question itself. It is outside my paradigm to think that a woman's body can be owned by anyone else but herself.
Quite where an enlightened man entering into this society would find a woman who is not docilely colluding with this patriarchal bullshit it would be difficult to say. As usual, B and I are left feeling alienated from this timewarped society: either they are mad or we are.
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2 comments:
While I am amazed at the idea that a Nigerian paper would discuss the female body at all, I have to smile at the responses they published... As a Nigerian woman in her 20s I have to say there are women who would take issue with the idea that her body (In part of the whole) belongs to someone else. Unfortunately they either do not live in Nigeria, or have learnt to only speak such things to like-minded women.
You wonder where an enlightened man would find a Nigerian woman who is not docilely colluding with the patriarchal bullshit... Those women also wonder if such a man really exists in Nigeria and if so, how to find him...
hi. i check out ur blog once in a while and at times u sure do make me laugh with ur views on Nigeria. well hate it or love it Nigeria rocks! peace man! nice blog by the way.
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