Dear Patriachy Rest in Peace
[Applause]
um
so straight to my my point
the a pager here his
each time i remember the story of
shady i quiver
shady was actually a very high fine
student in university
and she graduated as the best student in
the school
she had lofty dreams she had
a great mindset she had big aspirations
and when she graduated i mean she
actually did not have to
ask for jobs because multinationals were
giving her jobs numerous offers
however charlie got a job very great job
got married this true life story anyway
got married in a couple of them
in a time of eight years and after shane
got married
everything started drinking because she
got married
her husband had to intercept her
promotion
and job at her workplace told her that
because she was married she had to give
up
her goals and her vision because she was
a woman
that she needed to compromise
and it’s time i talk about this story
it’s more than just study it’s a lot of
women
it’s the reality that women face in
africa
where they have to compromise themselves
just to make men comfortable
and i fear that i need to say this right
now that i might offend you with my
speech
however i’ll be offending you to be a
better person
i’ll be offending you to be a better man
i’ll be offending you to unlearn the
biases you have about gender
relationships about how you treat women
and that is why i’m talking about
patriarchy today a system that has so
normalized the oppression of women
you are going to agree with me that it’s
not the way an uber driver is going to
talk to me
as a man that he’s going to talk to a
woman right
there is going to be a difference a
speaker here mentioned
that if you sit you know at the last
part
in a car they’ll literally tell you i
mean you’re a woman you don’t have no
right to tell us
you’re supposed to be in the middle we
men are oppressed
in the society structures are all
enabled by our culture by religion
and societal values and norms
and for a new world to come here we need
to keep up
on those detrimental and toxic
mentality we have about gender and that
is why i said rest in peace
patriarchy because i think that
patriarchy should be slain
and should be buried for a new world and
that’s why it’s arresting peace to a
system
that will accuse women and still blame
women for being abused
and the most recent one just happened
last week
a woman was battered by her husband who
is a reporter of a tv station that we
all know
and she was battered and she had some
hope on social media to cry out for help
and in less than 24 hours she was
reconciled to her abuser
by a governor in the country and she was
forced to take
a picture with her abuser this is a man
who battled a woman
that went through caesarean procedure
just in two weeks ago
this is the world we live in a lot of
women are suffering
are suffering because of these systems
don’t you think that patriarchy issue is
don’t you think that patriarchy should
rest in peace
i don’t think a lot of people really
want peter patrick university
and i know a lot of men might be
offended because of privilege
you have male privilege and you have to
acknowledge that you do have male
privilege
but it is just so ironic how we expect
the white people to treat us better
as blacks we shout when we talk about
racism i mean you are not supposed to be
racist towards me but then
inequality is not just about race it’s
about gender it’s about every other
thing
so if you don’t want someone to treat
you in a disdain
demeaning and condescendingly just
because you are black
then you should extend that same
leverage
to minorities and marginalized groups
such as the women
in the society that’s why it’s a resting
piece to
a structure that would say that
women are weak in nature but then
expect women to endure so much pain
is it not just so ironic how we say
women are so weak when you see a woman
an average one is packaging
resting peace to a structure that
normalizes
women being so unsafe around men
i can tell you here that there is no man
in this room
that is scared of jogging down the
streets because of women
but i can tell you that almost every
woman here would be scared of jogging
down our streets because of men
i remember one time i was traveling i
was actually in the club
and were all men inside the car and the
girl actually stopped the car
she wanted to get into the car and when
she picked into the car and saw her oh
man
she said no i can’t do this it’s very
dangerous she won’t want that
under her breath and i heard the
gratitude of
everyone was laughing but i found that
very painful
that masculinity is now a symbol
of danger to the female gender that
women cannot
trust men that women cannot stay around
men and feel
safe and i’m not saying that masculinity
is inherently toxic
but these are norms values that we have
learned
from culture from transition that has
made you believe that you are better off
than the woman and your masculinity is
actually activated when you take
privilege or when you take advantage
of vulnerable women and that is why you
have to unlearn that bias right now
rest in peace to is structural
and expect women to shrink themselves
just to accommodate
men in their lives and they tell them
look you don’t have to dream too big i
mean you are a woman
you know that you you end up getting
married you have to reduce the way you
are doing it don’t buy it
don’t buy a house yet until you get
married women are constantly
pressured to shrink themselves just
because they want
male company and it’s not supposed to be
rest in peace to a structure
that will abuse women and still believe
them
rest in peace to a structure that hold
women to
a higher moral standard than men when
mentioned is normal
when we mentioned the problem we have
people saying things like
you know you’re a woman you’re not
supposed to there are things that a man
will do and we can actually
such structures are structures we don’t
need in the new world
and that is why i talk about gender
equality
and whenever i talk about gender
equality people stare at me and they are
like what what are you trying to say are
you trying to say a man should become a
woman
many times people misconstrue the
concept of gender equality to mean
gender sickness that’s not what it means
gender equality is that
we are different but we are identical in
value
and what that means is that when a black
man is asking for equality from a white
man
he is not saying i want to become a
white man he’s not what’s saying
no he’s saying i want you to treat me
the same way you treat
your your your you know your your other
white people
so gender equality is not saying that
there are no differences
even if i believe that the difference
between a man and a woman is highly
social
psychological and not psychological
sorry
physiological and biological in my
opinion
i believe that that is actually the most
distinctive difference between a man and
a woman
every other factor is as a result of
social cultural
conditioning and social engineering and
that’s why when people say
men are not emotional or women are
emotional
and i ask people what do you mean by
being emotional many times in the
nigerian society
we define being emotional by being soft
being mushy but you know emotions are a
full range of feelings
that means that the man who gets angry
easily is an emotional person
same as the woman who falls in love
easily but many times we make people
look like i tell people men are not less
emotional than women
just because you’ve not cried in the
past 10 years doesn’t it doesn’t mean
that you’re logical
doesn’t mean you’re logical the
difference is that men
are socialized to show a kind of emotion
and women are socialized to show a kind
of emotion
from the construct of masculinity and
femininity
men are socialized to show emotions
that detect possession dominance
power that’s why the man who says he is
not emotional he has to do it
vulnerability will easily slap you if
you provoke him
he will easily slap you but then women
are socialized to show soft emotion
tender care you know vulnerability
weakness these
are the factors they taught us this
thing while we were small when we were
little
would not accommodate the excellence of
women if you were if you actually went
to primary school when a woman tops the
class there is something that teachers
would normally say
see
it’s very abnormal and you know what
that does it starts to
make men feel that women are supposed to
be excellent
in the same space with them it puts up a
competitive spirit and that’s why you
see men
who happily kill the dreams of their
wives
because they have been cruel they are
not inherently bad people
but these are things that they have
learned from structures from systems
from religion and it’s just so
hypocritical to me how we say we believe
in love as religious people because that
that is
one rubric that every religion is based
on love
talk about islam talk about christianity
talk about judaism they’ll all talk
about love
and there is always one thing that we
say treat others
the way you want them to treat you so
how do we apply
that in our everyday living
and that’s why it’s very important to
have this conversation about
individuality
you would be intellectually dishonest
if you don’t acknowledge this the place
and the efforts that women played
the just ended and starts protesting
nigeria
they were the forerunners of that
campaign
they raised money in a week phone calls
from mid-car
aid for security for everything i saw
everything and that is to show you how
much we are we are lacking behind
because we are not including women in
money in issues that matter
and just like one of the speakers said
she said that
africa is still poor because women are
poor
if we don’t include women in important
things we’ll still give backwards
all right to a system that over prepare
women for underprepared
men see
if you see women who are so prepared
they are all
marriage conscious they are all
commitment driven they are all
all of that stuff and they get married
and they are the ones how do you build
something with someone who’s dedicated
to shattering that thing and the society
is going to tell you just stay
there you know you’re a woman you have
to pray you have to just
submit to yourself are you an
you have to assignment yourself you have
to you want to do this you have to do
that
you know when kamala harris won a lot of
men were applauding her
social media i said we have to address
our hypocrisy do you know what it means
to be the husband of kamala harris
because you know what it means to let
her
go on countless meetings with top men
who have nobody made me better than you
reach out that you
have more connections than you but you
find security
in her dream to let her loosen because
at the end of the day
every relationship should let us be our
truer self
and that is why gender equality is very
important it’s very important because
without the inclusion of women we are
missing out a part of nature
that is supposed to be there
and all i just want to ask you today is
we
review your belief systems right now as
we sit down here
how much have you internalized misogyny
patriarchy and these systems
are you going to go back from here and
you tell your girlfriend
i don’t want i don’t want you to go to
that walk again
are you going to go back from here and
you lay your hands on your wife
or you encourage the culture of silence
when women are abused
oh don’t talk about it you are abused
you were raped no matter no man wants to
marry you
it is just so funny how we stigmatize
women
for being abused just for male
admiration
does it make sense to you a woman is
being abused
but here she has to give it to herself
so she will be more appealing to men
that is such a destructive system that
is why i’m here today
to say rest in peace patriarchy
and gender equality cannot wait thank
you so much
you