The current clamour for a unisex world by women emancipation apostles all over the world is now a topical issue. The clamour has gained so much ground. Its popularity was made possible by its patronage by the United Nations and some other countries of the world especially the developed world.
Considering a unisex world from human angle might be plausible, but what kind of world is it going to bequeath to us? A world which is completely unisex in which one has to look very closely before knowing whether a human being is a male or female to me is going to be a very strange world full of confusions and negativities.
History has it that a wife’s name was recorded in her husband’s ledger book which made her husband’s property. In those days, the relationship between man and woman was cordial and harmonious. Men were actually the breadwinners, while women of the time used to support their husbands in obedience and humility. The warmth of women at home when their husbands return from their daily toils was always felt.
In a nutshell, a deep exploration of available antecedents proves that public life has not been the lots of women. But today, the case is surprisingly different. Modern women today tend to rise from a sudden realisation and have rejected their naturally assistant position. Instead, they opt for public life and have chosen to rub shoulders with men. It is now a popular jingle to hear that whatever a man can do, a woman can do, even better.
Armed with this belief, women are aggressively demanding for equal space in the governance of their various societies. Nigerian women, in order to toe the lines of western women in their agitation, have degenerated to doing things that were hitherto anathema to our moral and cultural values. Nigerian women today are not only involved in politics but want to edge the men out.
It is no longer uncommon to see women attending late night political meetings leaving their husbands at home with children.
For all I know, it is not our culture that a woman becomes a soldier and carries arms, or a police man that runs night duties. I have also never heard where a woman was a taxi driver in the good olden days. But today, we have a lot of them as taxi drivers and bus conductors. That women want to be like men, talk as men, sit as men, dress as men, work as men, think and behave as men, to me portends doom.
Recorded women agitations started in America in the 1840s. in a conference held by women in New York. They called for the amendment of the American Constitution to reflect the existence of women. They argued that the then American Constitution did not recognise women in national life. During this period, American women were disenfranchised and therefore took no part in the politics of America.
In Europe, the German experience gives the picture of women struggle. The Welmer Constitution therefore gave equal political class to both genders. The German women were also granted legal rights to acquire land and own properties. Also in 1970, Britain passed the property act to law which gave British women the right to own properties like their American and German counterparts.
In the fourth international conference held in Beijing China in 1995, women recorded another milestone in their emancipation struggle. Their request for reservation of 30 per cent of positions in governments all over the world was granted.
Nigeria too, during the Second Republic, adopted the U.N. human rights clause through the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act and the 1979 Constitution subsequently granted equal rights to all.
There is nothing wrong in granting some rights to women. Women are human beings and so should not be treated otherwise. But the clamour for equality between men and women is unacceptable.
From the Christian point of view, man is older than the woman. God gave man the charge over everything including woman. This makes sex differences a natural factor that cannot be done away with. Unisex world, therefore, is grossly destructive and shamefully anti-nature.
Aristotle, the great Greek philosopher, emphatically stated that the woman is cut out to be rated by man. He stated that the “relationship between the male and the female is naturally that of the superior to the inferior, of the ruler to the ruled”.
Hegel whose works have helped greatly in shaping the human community said inter alia that, the place of the woman is in the home and that the spheres of politics and the state belong to the man.
The intense longing for equality with men by women has grave consequences. We must admit that the moral decadence and chaotic nonsense we are facing today is traceable to this agitation. Today, public and social life has taken women out of their family responsibilities as they struggle to gain a good chunk of the economy. And this has created a yawning gap at home with its great consequences on the children.
If something is not done fast to check the excesses of our women in public life, the brunt will be gross lack of good leaders tomorrow.
Ordy wrote in from Port Harcourt.

John Ordy