Opinion
The Cost Of Women Emancipation
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 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 realization 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 anathemic considering our ways of life. Nigerian women today are not only involved in politics but want to edge the men out
It is not 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 policeman 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, 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 re-effect 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% of positions in governments all over the world was granted. Nigeria too in 1983 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 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 ruled by man. The relationship between the male and the female is naturally that of the superior to the inferior, of the ruler to the ruled” (Ibid 1:7).
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 m\an.
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 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
“All work and no play”, its said, “makes Jack a dull boy.” Despite this age-long maxim that recognises the role of play in early childhood development, play appears to be eluding many Nigerian kids. The deprivation of play opportunities comes in different forms for the Nigerian child depending on family’s social setting or status, but the effect is much the same. For children in Nigerian poor families, life is becoming as much a hassle as it is for their struggling parents. Due to harsh economic conditions, many families resort to engaging their kids prematurely in trading activities especially in hawking, to help boost family revenues, when these kids should be enjoying leisure after school. Some of these children barely attend schools while being forced to spend much of their childhood hustling in the streets. For children from well-off families, time could be as crunchy as it is for their busy parents when, obsessed with setting agenda for the future of their kids, parents arrange stringent educational regiment too early for their kids.
These group of children are made to get-off the bed by 5.30am every weekday, get ready for private school buses that call at 6.00am, otherwise report by however means to school at 7.20am.The situation is worse for kids in the city of Lagos where the need to beat urban traffic rush-hours is very high. Most children are further subjected to extra hours of lessons after school at 2.00pm, only to be released with loads of homework. On many occasions children who leave home for school at 6.30am get back by 3.30pm. With hardly enough time to eat, do school assignments and take afternoon naps, these children hardly had time for plays before dinners. In Nigeria, kids of ages between 3 and 12 spend averages of 9 hours a day and 45 hours a week to and from schools, and additional hours doing home assignments and domestic jobs, whereas their peers in developed countries spend about half that duration and have more time for leisure.
Any remaining spare time left after school work or street hustle is further stolen, when kids who usually are fascinated by gadgets, are exposed to household electronics like phones, tablets and gaming consoles. Electronic games may create a sense of leisure, but the difference with human interactions is that kids doing games interface mostly with machines or with programme structured in ways that entrap a child’s pysch directionally, according to the game’s programming, in ways that may not encourage independent thinking. Moreso, attraction to such gadgets displaces kids’ attention from important television and radio programmes. The prevalent tight, academic schedules for some Nigerian kids, though intended for academic excellence, encroaches on childhood leisure time needed to achieve an all-round childhood development, and could make children to resent formal education altogether. Besides, academic excellence or economic pursuit, is not all there is to living a well-nurtured life.
Children’s leisure time, defined as time left over after sleeping, eating, personal hygiene and attending school or day-care, is very crucial to childhood development. Sociologists recommend that children should have at least 40 per ceny of the day as leisure. According to Berry Brazelton, a former pediatrician at Harvard Medical School, “Play is the most powerful way a child explores the world and learns about him or herself.” Unstructured play encourages independent thinking and allows the young to negotiate their relationships with their peers, and in the process build self-confidence and self-control. Play is one of the important ways in which young children gain essential knowledge and skills. Leisure time enhances learning as fun enables children to learn at their own level and pace. Young children naturally explore and learn many skills by making cognitive connections from events that catch their attention.
Unstructured plays help children developed their cognitive, physical and communication skills that make them acquire social qualities necessary in navigating relationships in adult life. Plays enable children assess how others feel and learn perspectives as well as empathy through observing differences in facial expressions, body language and even tone of voice, which helps them copy how to express themselves to others, and therefore develop socially acceptable behavours that build relationships. In cooperative activities, children willingly take things in turn and may delegate roles. Children can also share the glory of winnings through competitive games, which is all great for working together in task sharing. Aside encouraging parents to ensure adequate leisure time for their kids at home, schools should make plays and exercises an integral part of the educational curriculum. The educational curriculum set by the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) includes specific training durations and break periods, as well as sporting activities, as part of the school system.
Due to poor government funding, sports in public schools have declined, while most private schools lack sporting infrastructure or even play grounds. These make recreational activities and sports implementation almost impossible in schools. Also, the increasing rate of urbanisation in Nigerian communities is gradually eroding ancient playgrounds, while established urban centres have lost community playgrounds. With tightening apartment spaces now being the norm in most urban residential areas, many kids are forced to wriggle within burglary-proof enclosures. Nigerian governments and the relevant agencies should ensure that existing child labour protection laws, educational and urban development codes are implemented in the country, to enable proper nurturing of children as the future stakeholders of our society. Private schools, especially, should be supervised to ensure they follow the educational curriculum standards set by NERDC.
In a bid to impress parents and draw more patronage as better option than public schools, private schools, most of whom operate in cramped environments, have continued to set high regiments of training schedules beyond the capacity of most kids, and even encourage enrollment of pre-school age kids who can not sit still to listen for an extended periods of time. Schools, from creche to secondary levels, without playgrounds and recreational facilities should not be allowed to operate, and should be made to understand and implement appropriate curriculum and training durations. Many Nigerian kids, whether from rich or poor families, appear to have been set-up inadvertently, in the same leisure denial that affects their parents. All work and no play could lead to some messed-up kids who grow up not understanding social cues, and being unemotional and self-centered, manifest later as obsessive-compulsive adults.
By: Joseph Nwankwo
We thank God who is above all human contrivance and arrogance. Congratulations, Your Excellency Amaopusenibo Sir Siminalayi Joseph Fubara. Your victory takes us back to the Bible as a living document of a God that rules in the affairs of all His creation. In a manner of speaking, welcome back from your first war with Phillistines, Your Excellency! Yes, first example is David and Goliath! And like David, Your Excellency stands over Goliath in victory. But that is not enough. Our real enemy is that Your Excellency is Governor of a State with a wretched economy. Indigenes of Your State are today reduced to battalions of beggars waiting for who will hire their loyalty on the usual “pay-as-you-go” basis.
Your Excellency, it brings us to another Bible- based parallel. Conscientious Rivers indigenes above 50, should identify with and commit our all to this second parallel. It is to liberate the economy and people of Rivers people from 23 years enslavement and poverty, for us to regain our dignity and pride. When the economy of Egypt was drifting into a disaster zone, even Pharaoh did not know it. He also did not know what to do. But God sent a Joseph to build the economy into a fortress of good fortune that overcame the economic and social disaster Egypt did not know was ahead. Your Excellency for 23 years, Rivers State has been ruled without any logical, credible and consistent PLAN of how to overcome mass poverty from our dehydrated local economies.
Your Excellency, Rivers State cannot survive one month without Federal allocation! So called IGR only about 10 per cent of Federal allocation.It is also not based on what we produce but on tax from other people’s productivity that pass through our State. Pharaoh did not know what to do in the case of Egypt. May it please God to position another Joseph in Governor Siminalayi Joseph Fubara to heal Rivers State and build an economy that all Africa will come to access in order to chart a new course out of worsening economic hardship that is caused by near zero investment in productivity and endemic reckless looting. They are the twin chambers nursing a corporate cancer unfolding across Nigeria and Africa. The hard work begins today, Your Excellency.
We need an economic blueprint that will enrich every Rivers senatorial district from investment to grow productivity and to enrich every Rivers person from career-based productive labour, just as Pharaoh was enriched by Joseph’s economic Blueprint. Let Rivers State stop the trend of waiting the lives of young Rivers people recruited by Phillistines into cultism, thuggery and easy money, as a career. These Phillistines believe they have only lost one phase of many legal battles and battles by other means. But from comments in the public media, their eyes are fixed on 4-years of war and more! Your Excellency, we the people will not let you forget what you owe us. We have to make unbelievers see that your leadership is different and that we are uprooting the old order of an unproductive Feudal System. That system makes a few persons and their cronies to monopolise our collective wealth, while the majority are left in misery. Let’s put an end to enslavement by cabals and mass poverty in Rivers State. That is when the Phillistines will surrender.
By: Amaopusenibo Brown
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