Stinking Double Standards!!!

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a huge fan of equality and common sense. That means that among the things I hate, and piss me off, topping that list would be double standards. And considering the fact that I am a Nigerian living in Nigeria, the number of double standards I come across on a daily? Well…

First of all, let us start of with the most basic and common form of double standard. The ones found in relationships. A lot of people might stop reading at this point, and that is okay. If this needles you, and you’ve come this far, congratulations, you’ve made it to the bad bitch genre!!!

There are some societal expectations that are expressed in regard to relationships, the things the man should do, as well as the woman. How they should behave. If you live in my part of the world, you would realize that a lot of people want to have a say in the relationship of two grownups, more than the two grown ups in question. Let’s get to those expectations.

I came across a Tweet that the writer expressed how he sent his girlfriend out of his house, because she came to visit him, met his mother sweeping, and didn’t collect the broom from her. And that brings me to our first expectation: The genuine slave disease. As I have humbly taken it upon myself to name it. 

You’re welcome.

You might think it quite extreme how I decided to name that disease -because that is what it is, nothing short of it. The genuine slave disease is a disease that makes you believe that you are entitled to some certain things from your woman. For example, cleaning, washing, and cooking. Before I go further, it seems wise for me to remind you at this point that when you’re in love with someone, you would want to do these things for them willingly. And then some, and of course, that should not be one sided. No healthy relationship should be one sided. And everything should be done willingly.

Sorry to digress, if I ever come across that man, I have a few questions for him.

Who raised him?

Who raised his mother?

Who sweeps when a visitor is around?

Why was his mother sweeping instead of him?

Why did he expect a visitor to clean his house for him?

A lot of people have conditioned themselves to believe their women have to be some certain things to be deemed worthy to be called their wife. A man such as this would marry a woman and turn her into his family slave. Whenever they want their clothes washed, they call his wife. Whenever they want Nsala soup, they call her. Whenever they want to have a family event, they don’t bother with caterers because they have his wife. And then, years later, after all the stress of trying to keep up, she starts looking older than her husband. He cheats, they blame the wife for not taking good care of herself.

This is a script that we have seen play out extensively in Nigeria.

A very disgusting script.

And as I hate double standards, lets us talk about what is expected from the man as well.

I am sure you can guess this one quite easily. And if you guessed money, you would be very much correct. So, let’s give this expectation a name, shall we?

We shall call it: Entitlement with a sprinkle of witchcraft spirit, and greediness syndrome. Let’s get it.

The average Nigerian man dates an average Nigerian woman, and for some reason, she begins to feel entitled to money that she didn’t work for. 

 “Men have always been providers since the beginning of time…” That is always their argument. Well, women have always been born nurturers since the beginning of time, and also, women were not allowed to vote, allowed to go to school, work, inherit, were not able to choose their spouses, did not have agency over themselves, were more or less decorated sex objects that were expected to do nothing else, but eat, sleep, and birth football teams. But the world has evolved, right? And we have to evolve with it.

An average Nigerian man marries an average Nigerian woman, and lifts the weight of all her family problems. He is expected to cater to her parents, her siblings, his children, the rent, and almost everything in between. While wifey dearest is somewhere shouting equality, not understanding that with equal rights, come equal responsibility as well as equal punishment.

In a nutshell, if you want a traditional man that will handle all of your bills, you have to be a traditional woman.

Again, allow me to remind you of what I stated earlier. When you love someone, you would want to do things for them, as long as it would make them happy. Paying for nails, hair, and all of that. As long as your love and sacrifice is not one sided.

But of course, we all know that the list of expectations would not be complete if we don’t include body weight and size.

So, we shall call this expectation: Common sense is not so common after all syndrome. And what is this syndrome? Just as the name implies, in a lot of situations that require common sense, and are more or less no-brainers, we always have the odd bunch that decide to be unfortunate.

And in this vein, we would be talking about body weight, comparisons and expectations from men and women.

It always irritates me when people body shame pregnant women, or women who happened to still have their baby fat after birth. For starters, only complete idiots body shame pregnant women. Because if you’re not an idiot, why would you call a woman’s baby bump ugly? The stress, and the hassle that goes into bringing a child into this world should never be trivialized, and demands absolute care and attention. Our bodies go through drastic changes during pregnancy, and the pain to push out one single child is one that words doesn’t quite seem to quantify. The least of their worries is if they look like Kim K or Bey.

But when men on the other hand, pull on weight in the first few years of marriage, it is said that they are enjoying life, they are being taken care of. Kindly stay one place please, don’t confuse Amadioha.

If you made it this far, thank you so much for your time, and patience. Looking forward to hearing from you.