*NATASHA AND MY FEMALE FRIENDS
I have angered not a few of my cherished female friends as a result of the stance I have taken on this Natasha debacle.
Some close female friends of mine have called or chatted with me privately to express their feelings about this issue. They feel I should have kept quiet about it instead of running the risk of hurting my female friends.
Some have given me the quiet treatment while there are a few who went to the extreme by unfriending me here and having the guts to call or send a message to me that they have unfriended me. One was too brash to call me a chauvinist. That’s a tad too extreme.
I am not a chauvinist. I love women. I believe in women’s rights. I have written a lot of literature and films, advancing women’s rights. I will do a lot more. Close friends from the university call me a womanist, some take it a bit more down the stretches by saying I am a feminist.
I believe in the rights of women. The people I have ever loved most in my life and those who have made the most impacts on my life are women; my paternal grandmother and my only sibling.
I have four beautiful daughters whom I consider God’s greatest blessings to me. I might have more children, and I won’t deliberately plan the gender. More girl children would be great blessings.
I will want my lovely girl children, at least two of them to seek and succeed in careers in the public service, but I would be heartbroken if any of them look up to Natasha as a role model. I feel Natasha is a weakling, and I won’t want any of my girls to be so weak as to resort to unfounded accusations of sexual harassment as ways to get even with men.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Chimamanda Adichie, Dora Akunyili, Ndi Okereke Onyiuke, Virgy Etiaba, Arunma Ote, Genevieve Nnaji, Funke Akindele, Mo Abudu, Florence Ita Giwa, Christy Anyanwu, Chioma Ajunwa, Asisat Oshoala, Kema Chikwe, Tiwa Savage, Patricia Etteh, I can go on and on to list the many Nigerian women who have made names for themselves in the public service, academia, Literati, politics, cinema, etc, without having to raise false alarms about sexual harassment against men. These were and still are, the true models of feminine strength.
They de-emphasize their femininity and focus on their competence as people, and they have gone to win and continue to dominate in their areas of choice. Men, have had no options but to bow before them.
Natasha embarrassed womanhood. She showed herself to be ill-tempered and maybe, too self-entitled. She showed no regard for rules and couldn’t even show a good grasp of the simplest rules and procedures of the institution she serves in. That’s not the kind of person I would want my daughters to be. I would want my daughters to show themselves as eminently qualified and adequately trained for the positions they seek.
I am disgusted at women who believe that they can get what they want by blackmailing men or their fellow women. Those women who would cry and shout about being abused because they are women even while they might be the real aggressors. Such women shouldn’t be the models of true feminism and power of womanhood.
Women are the better creatures. They are beautiful, they are lovely, they are wise and they deserve every respect. But like men, a misbehaving woman should be condemned and made to become a better individual. Being a woman shouldn’t confer immunity. Women are people, and not some props or some inferior items.
For Natasha, I pray she learns the lessons from this experience and bounces back, a better and stronger leader.
*ONWUASOANYA FCC JONES
