The Rejection of the Affirmative Action Bill for Women by the National Assembly has provoked a vexed debate in the polity and also put innocent male members of the legislature in the spotlight as incurable misogynists who are bent on limiting women's participation in politics in the country. Those pushing such narratives with bile and vigor tend to think that the problematique of women participation in politics could be addressed mechanically. They deliberately ignore historical lessons and the fact that the problem is not peculiar to our country, it is a global phenomenon.
As it stands, we are not doing badly in that regard if you ask me and if you take into consideration how long democracy has endured in our clime. Women's participation in politics is not a mechanical process. It evolves naturally over time and cannot be accelerated by legislation. As exemplified by American democracy, it took over 200 years of continuous democratic governance for the first female Vice President, Kamala Harris to emerge in the United States of America. Needless to remind us how long it took for women to be granted voting rights or for Nancy Pelosi to become the first female speaker of the House of Representatives in the US. We may also recall how Patricia Olubunmi Foluke Etteh became our first female Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2007. Providence rather than advocacy made her Speaker against all odds even though her tenure was brief. The takeaway from the examples I have cited is that democratic ethos occurs naturally in all climes irrespective of the kind of advocacy rights activists may do or not do.
As the misogynistic narrative rages on I wonder how many of its proponents have read Chinweizu Ibekwe’s controversial but insightful book, Anatomy of Female Power: A Masculinist Dissection of Matriarchy. I do not doubt in my mind that if the leading campaigners for more gender inclusiveness in our political space have read the book they would have known whom to blame for the failure of the Gender Inclusive Bill at the National Assembly.
From my vantage position, it would seem like the strategy the sponsors of the bill adopted to get it through the National Assembly was designed to frustrate the process rather than facilitate it. If not, when the wives of the President and Vice President lend credence to the bill by going to the National Assembly to push for its adoption, why were they not accompanied by the wives of the legislatures and governors?
To understand the subterfuge involved in the cosmetic visit of Aisha Buhari and Dolapo Osinbajo to the National Assembly we should ask ourselves how many women do we have in the Federal and State Executive Councils respectively? Those familiar with our political culture will agree with me without reservation that it is easier to increase the number of women in politics through appointive than elective positions. And if Aisha Buhari couldn't succeed in getting her husband, the president to increase the number of women in his cabinet, did we seriously expect that she will succeed in the hallowed chamber, which is outside her sphere of influence?
Following Chinweizu, “men may rule the world, but women rule the men who rule the world”. For me, women who rule men who rule the world do not like other women having access to those men effortlessly. So they would do everything possible to entrench their control of such men.
In the light of the above our male legislators( men generally ) are subtly controlled by women (spouses, mothers, side-chics, and so on ) in ways that we could never understand. Forget male chauvinism, men are more philogynists than misogynists. Yes, they are. Then why did the bill fail at the National Assembly is what will readily come to one's mind?
It did because the women in charge of our political leaders genuinely did not want the bill to sail through. They know the kind of competition they would face for the control of the men in power if we have more women in power. These women understand the manipulative power of women a la’ Chinweizu, that's why they worked against the bill in the “other room,” no pun is intended. It is what it is.
Consequently, those blaming members of the National Assembly for the failed bill should cut them some slack and look beyond them. The real culprit, the ones we should truly blame for the failure of the bill to see the light of the day is the women in their lives. In my opinion, women, especially those that have the “mumu” buttons of men in power, are the ones covertly and overtly frustrating fellow women in politics because they do not want other women manipulating those men at work other than them. These powerful women are the ones women rights activists should locate and lobby if we want to see more women in politics and positions of authority in 2023.
On that note, all those interested in breaching the gender gap in our politics should channel their campaign to the women who rule the men who rule our world. They should make them understand that admitting more women into the political spectrum would not pose a threat to them in the way they believe it will. Come to think of it, what will be will be.
Felix Akpan Ph.D
lixzito@yahoo. co. uk
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