For many years now, women have been struggling to achieve autonomy and freedom from man’s domination. Men by nature have domineering attitude which in most cases is oppressive and exploitative towards their female counterparts.
This is more rampant in African Societies where a man is believed to be the lord of the family. There is the wide belief that men are superior to women, resulting in the domination and even oppression of the womenfolk. This brings us to the issue of male chauvinism.
Male Chauvinism, according to………………. Is the belief, attitude or behavior of men who …… disparage or otherwise denigrate females in the belief that they are inferior to males and thus deserving of less than equal treatment or benefit.
The fanatical, boastful and unreasonable patriotism and ego, and by extension prejudiced belief by men has been a source of worry and concern to some radical female elite otherwise known as feminists, who believe that men and women are equal partners and creatures of God. This obviously informed the September 1995 Beijin Conference where women demanded equal rights with men.
It is, however, sad to note that in spite of feminist struggle and various agitations by women to be accorded equal rights with men, or at least be treated with respect and dignity, women still suffer domination and oppression from men. This is obvious in the high cases of rape, and domestic violence in our society, and even in the lopsidedness of elective positions or political offices occupied by women in a country like Nigeria.
Take for instance, the relationship between husband and wife, it is expected that they should be co and equal partners in marriage in such a way that the husband respects his wife, just as the wife respect her husband. But what we see in most marriages today is appalling and falls short of mutual respect.
I once observed this in one family here a man and a professed pastor tends to oppress his wife. He treats his wife with indignity and believes his only duty of his wife is to provide for her needs. His wife has no say in the affairs of the home. The man’s word is a law that cannot be challenged by his wife. Worst, this so-called man of God demands for sex at his own will and even sometimes have sexual intercourse with his wife against her will. If I may ask, is this act not tantamount to rape? Or is it cheer chauvinism?
Rape is no doubt any form of forced sexual intercourse or other sexual activity with another person without his or her consent. It is therefore, not out of place to accuse any men who force his wife to have sexual intercourse with him of rape.
The truth remains that it is not good enough to fight against general social inequalities and pass new laws without addressing the issue of male chauvinism in our society. Days are gone when people believed that male are the most superior in the world.
The world has gone beyond that stupid and erroneous belief. Nowadays, the trend is that what a man can do, a woman do to even better. Unlike before when men dominated all professions, and socio-economic endeavous, women are now in every field of human life like law, medicine, engineering, science, academics, excelling even better than their male counterparts.
In the United States of America, the presidential candidate of the ruling Democratic Party is a woman, Hillary Clinton.
Male chauvinism can also be related to male violence against women. This is getting more and more conspicuous and fatal in the whole of the western world. At the same time, social action both within the legal and the therapeutic arena deal almost exclusively with the obvious, extreme and tragic manifestations of violence.
However, if we accept that every act that uses coercion or other limitation against women’s freedom and dignity is violence, we must also recognize the countless forms f non-performance of responsibilities, abuse of power, violence and domination which men practice and which hitherto have passed unnoticed in everyday life.
Sometimes, male chauvinism takes a gradual process to metamorphose into something horrible or beyond imagination from the everyday male chauvinism. It comes in various forms such s verbal, violence, threats, beating, rape which sometimes result in death. This is very common among many families where internal crisis is a daily occurrence.
Male chauvinism has many effects both on the male who carries out the attack and the female who is at the receiving end. But the effects are more fatal on women.
Male chauvinism manifests in every life, and in all places including families, offices, schools and even markets, where men display superiority complex over their female counterparts. Even when women have better ideas that can promote or develop relationship, industry or even the society as a whole, men tend to discard such ideas and rather want to stick to their own no matter how unreasonable or hollow it is.
This attitude is not only undemocratic but has far-reaching effects on the psyche of women. Male chauvinism does not only deny women autonomy, but also assails their intellectual capacity. It creates bad working relationship in offices, tears family apart, limit the growth of women, reduce women dignity and self-esteem and even causes women emotional instability.
The way out of this is for women to insist on the implementation of the Beijin Conference Declaration. Any form of dissemination, domination or oppression must be resisted by women.
As a matter of fact, governments all over the world must have a legislation that frowns or even forbids male chauvinism in all strata of our society. Unless this is done, the society may continue to witness high cases of domestic violence, divorce, rape and socio-economic under-development that are common features in the third world countries.
Nwankwo is a student of Abia State University, Uturu

MaryRose Nwankwo