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Under The Hair Drier
(Femininely
Speaking)
By
Uche Nworah
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So you think you know what Nigerian
women talk about when they go under the
hair drier? Think again. How about this
little conversation which took place at
a popular Hair and Beauty salon along
Bode Thomas Street, in the Surulere part
of Lagos? For security reasons, the
names of the female matadors have been
obliterated, likewise that of our
informant. |
“Madam Speaker is indeed a true son of the soil”.
“Daughter of the soil, you meant to say”.
“Oops! Yes”.
(Laughter)
“I really admire her courage and conduct in all
these. She appears unfazed by all the drama both on
the floor of the House, and outside”
“Girlfriend, i am also proud of her. I didn’t know
we still had such strong female characters in
Nigeria. To think that Nigerian men have tried to
sell us dummies as heroines in the past, who needs
Ngozi Okonji-Iweala, Dora Akunyili or Oby Ezekwesili
when we have Patricia Etteh?”
“You have a point there. What have the Ngozi
Okonji-Iwealas of Nigeria ever done for Nigerian
women? This goes to show that contrary to what the
male-run media houses in Nigeria will have us think,
the female breed are actually alive, well and
thriving. We are not any dying breed facing
extinction”.
“I find the whole thing interesting because as a
Nigerian woman, I have had to contend with selfish
chauvinistic men all my life. They make us believe
that women are not any good, that we can not stand
up to the men, or match their ways. This will teach
them all a lesson”.
“Tell me about it. In Patricia Etteh, I see a modern
day Amazon, she is indeed my heroine. The men are
shouting because she is proving to them that what a
man can do, a woman can also do, even better. One
of the reasons I’m stuck in this marriage with
Anthony is because of what i grew up hearing from my
dad, Di bu ugwu this, Di bu ugwu that.
I wish i had the courage of Patricia. Damn them all,
Nigerian men, my foot”.
“Don’t mind Nigerian men, thieving bastards they all
are. They should just watch their backs. Let’s see
who is bucking. Now they are beginning to drop dead
one after the other, and have the guts to blame it
on Madam Speaker, weak hearts and lily-livered they
all are. Was it Madam Speaker’s fault that they are
all getting a little bit excited about nothing
really? What is 600 million naira to the trillions
of naira they have been stealing from the national
treasury? If I had the opportunity of meeting Madam
Speaker, I will just pat her on the back, I will
also tell her not to mind the over-pampered Nigerian
men calling for her resignation, does this country
not belong to both men and women? Ever since they
started dipping their hands in the national till,
how many of them have ever resigned”.
“Do you mind them? Now they all keep referring to
Madam Speaker as the ‘hair dresser’ as if that has
anything to do with the matter at hand, at least she
had a J-O-B before coming into politics. We can not
say the same for most of these agbada wearing
fools who buy their PhDs from the internet. Even
with the so-called educated ones, what have they
done for the development of Nigeria with all the
Harvard, Yale and Sandhurst degrees they possess?
Talk about turning logic on its head”.
“I am happy that Nigerian women are finally
beginning to see the light, those foolish men who
have since cornered Nigeria’s national cake in Abuja
can no longer pull the wool over our eyes. Do they
think that we are buying all these ‘Ettehgate’
nonsense? It is just their own way of oppressing
Nigerian women the more, denying us of our rights
and share of the national cake, and perpetuating the
age-old male domination over women”.
“I feel you girlfriend, it is simply a classic
example of the power relationships in the Nigerian
society. I wish Nigerian women would recognise what
is going on in the House for what it truly is -
typical Nigerian man’s tantrum. I laughed myself
into a fit the other day, watching the so-called
honourable members of the House on the floor of the
House behaving like six-year old kids whose toys
have just been taken away from them”.
“Of course their toys have been taken away from
them. Who do they think they are fooling? They are
angry that it is a woman pulling the rug from under
their feet, they would have imagined what they would
have done with the 600 million Naira contract sum,
had it been one of the boys that presides over the
house. With the ink on the contract paper yet to
dry, they would have hopped on the next plane to
London with their girlfriends in tow for another of
their weekend frolicking at the London Paddington
Hilton Hotel”.
“What else would they have done with it? They would
have frittered it away as usual in frivolous
purchases. I’m sorry for those small-small
girls running all over Abuja. They would feel the
cash squeeze for once, also the owners of Steam bar
at Paddington”.
“I tell you what; perhaps we should take these our
conversations forward, why don’t we set up an
informal group of like-minded sisters, form like a
non-governmental organisation (NGO) that will
articulate our stand on issues particularly as it
concerns Nigerian women, especially those in
politics”.
“That sounds like a good idea, but would we not be
duplicating the efforts of organisations such as
Women in Nigeria (WIN), and the National Council of
Women Societies (NCWS)”.
“Not at all, those organisations are ‘dead’, they
don’t quite represent the views of contemporary
Nigerian women, perhaps they are a bit out of touch
with present day realities, still fighting eighties
battles. Have you seen or heard any of them come out
to make a statement in support of Madam Speaker? The
people who run such organisations are traitors to
the women cause if you ask me. Contrary to what they
claim, their husbands are parts of the
establishment, and so they dare not buck the trend
before they are sent packing from their matrimonial
homes”.
“You are right; we should articulate our views and
seek an audience with the likes of Abike Dabiri,
Chris Anyanwu, Kema Chikwe, Joy Emordi and Florence
Ita-Giwa. We have got to let them see the bigger
picture, if Etteh goes, then it is 20 years
backwards for the feminine movement in Nigeria. See
how long it took us to get here”.
“I will also suggest that we reach out to Marxists
in Nigeria if there are any survivors left, the
likes of Professor Des Wilson, Edwin Madunagu,
Mokwugo Okoye and Bala Usman, we may be able to
convince them with the argument that even Karl Max
himself would be proud of Madam Speaker’s
achievements so far, a hair dresser, commoner and
highly revered remember of the proletariat turning
the table on the bourgeoisies and ascending to the
number four position in the land, that’s some
achievement. A man like Edwin Madunagu will describe
the situation as the fulfilment of the Orwellian
prophecy foretold in George Orwell’s Animal Farm”.
“I wonder what the venerable Chinweizu would say to
this, can we bring him to our sidoole?”.
“Chi who? That’s a man we don’t want on our side any
day, with all his Pan-African ideologies and
conjured conspiracy theories of the west trying to
annihilate Africans; by the time he finishes with
his imaginary ideological battles against the west,
would he still have any energy left in him to offer
us any meaningful support? A man like him may
actually see our cause as an affront on African men”.
“You are quite right my sister, I wonder why sisters
are not truly seeing the game Nigerian men are
playing here; we are not kids any longer. They think
they are clever, throwing tokens at us to appease us
while at the same time working to undermine our
progress. See what they did to Remi Adiukwu-Bakare
in Lagos state, they never let her settle down at
her job as deputy governor under Bola Tinubu. Look
at how they have tried to smear Virginia Etiaba
during her brief tenure as Governor of Anambra
state. Even the men’s poster girls, their own
evidence of women empowerment in Nigeria – Ngozi
Okonji-Iweala, and Dora Akunyili, look at the rough
deal they are all getting. See how they shoved Aunty
Ngozi by the side, and almost killed Dora”.
“You are right girl; you are really getting me
started on this thing now. Sure we should take these
ideas forward. All over Nigeria, I just see evidence
of Nigerian men’s grand conspiracy to scuttle the
women’s movement and leave us perpetually
subservient to them”.
(Telephone rings, conversation ensues between one of
the female matadors and a male voice barking out
from the phone’s speakers)
(Seconds later, conversation cease, sighs, curses
and hisses follow)
“Stupid man, just wait, my day is coming. Sorry
Angela, you’ve got to hurry up with this hair. I
have to be home soon. My husband is on his way back
from work and his food is not yet ready, I don’t
want that his bad mouth this night”.
See also
Feminism and the Man
October 2007.
http://thelongharmattanseason.blogspot.com/
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Nigeria: Patricia Etteh Quits Lower House
Tuesday, October 30, 2007—Madam Patricia Etteh, the first
female Speaker of Nigeria's House of Representatives,
resigned Tuesday, following her indictment over the
misappropriation of public funds in multiple contracts
of N628m (US$5 million)for the renovation of her
official residence and the purchase of 12 official cars.
The Representatives had exchanged blows as they fought
over the case and Dr. Aminu Safana, the House Committee
Chairman on Health, slumped during the pandemonium. He
was rushed to National Hospital in Abuja where he died
shortly after and the Speaker was accused of causing his
sudden death. She ignored and dismissed calls for her
resignation until Tuesday.
Nigerian Times
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Super Rich: A Guide to Having it All
By Russell Simmons
Russell Simmons knows firsthand that
wealth is rooted in much more than the
stock
market. True wealth has more to do with
what's in your heart than what's in your
wallet. Using this knowledge, Simmons
became one of America's shrewdest
entrepreneurs, achieving a level of
success that most investors only dream
about. No matter how much material gain
he accumulated, he never stopped lending
a hand to those less fortunate. In
Super Rich, Simmons uses his rare
blend of spiritual savvy and
street-smart wisdom to offer a new
definition of wealth-and share timeless
principles for developing an unshakable
sense of self that can weather any
financial storm. As Simmons says, "Happy
can make you money, but money can't make
you happy." |
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The New Jim Crow
Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness
By Michele Alexander
Contrary to the
rosy picture of race embodied in Barack
Obama's political success and Oprah
Winfrey's financial success, legal
scholar Alexander argues vigorously and
persuasively that [w]e have not ended
racial caste in America; we have merely
redesigned it. Jim Crow and legal racial
segregation has been replaced by mass
incarceration as a system of social
control (More African Americans are
under correctional control today... than
were enslaved in 1850). Alexander
reviews American racial history from the
colonies to the Clinton administration,
delineating its transformation into the
war on drugs. She offers an acute
analysis of the effect of this mass
incarceration upon former inmates who
will be discriminated against, legally,
for the rest of their lives, denied
employment, housing, education, and
public benefits. Most provocatively, she
reveals how both the move toward
colorblindness and affirmative action
may blur our vision of injustice: most
Americans know and don't know the truth
about mass incarceration—but her
carefully researched, deeply engaging,
and thoroughly readable book should
change that.—Publishers
Weekly |
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Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays
Edited by
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Blacks in Hispanic Literature is a
collection of fourteen essays by scholars and
creative writers from Africa and the Americas.
Called one of two significant critical works on
Afro-Hispanic literature to appear in the late
1970s, it includes the pioneering studies of
Carter G. Woodson and
Valaurez B. Spratlin, published in the 1930s, as
well as the essays of scholars whose interpretations
were shaped by the Black aesthetic. The early
essays, primarily of the Black-as-subject in Spanish
medieval and Golden Age literature, provide an
historical context for understanding 20th-century
creative works by African-descended, Hispanophone
writers, such as Cuban
Nicolás Guillén and Ecuadorean poet, novelist,
and scholar
Adalberto Ortiz, whose essay analyzes the
significance of Negritude in Latin America. This
collaborative text set the tone for later
conferences in which writers and scholars worked
together to promote, disseminate, and critique the
literature of Spanish-speaking people of African
descent. . . .
Cited by a
literary critic in 2004 as "the seminal study in the
field of Afro-Hispanic Literature . . . on which
most scholars in the field 'cut their teeth'."
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Debt: The First 5,000 Years
By David Graeber
Before there was money, there was debt. Every economics textbook says the same thing: Money was invented to replace onerous and complicated barter systems—to relieve ancient people from having to haul their goods to market. The problem with this version of history? There’s not a shred of evidence to support it. Here anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom. He shows that for more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods—that is, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era, Graeber argues, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors. Graeber shows that arguments about debt and debt forgiveness have been at the center of political debates from Italy to China, as well as sparking innumerable insurrections. He also brilliantly demonstrates that the language of the ancient works of law and religion (words like “guilt,” “sin,” and “redemption”) derive in large part from ancient debates about debt, and shape even our most basic ideas of right and wrong. We are still fighting these battles today without knowing it. Debt: The First 5,000 Years is a fascinating chronicle of this little known history—as well as how it has defined human history, and what it means for the credit crisis of the present day and the future of our economy. Economist Glenn Loury /Criminalizing a Race
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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If you like this page consider making a donation
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
1950
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
____ 2005
Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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ChickenBones Store
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posted 20 October 2007
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