Are women really their own worst enemy?

The saying that women are their own worst enemies is no new revelation. Almost as old as time itself, women have been believed to have deep rooted rivalry amongst themselves. They say it is because every woman wants to be on top of her game and they are by nature territorial. From experience, they see men as good and dependable allies if properly courted. However, some women insist it is a strategic creation by men to divide the womenfolk. Hmm! What do you think? I spoke to some respondents and you will be reading some of their responses below. Please feel free to join us in this discourse via the contacts above. Happy reading! Sharon Even among sisters, this is so. While growing up, I discovered that we were always having trivial issues but it was not the same thing with the guys in the house. What always made me angry was the fact that my sister always wanted to be in control. Even though she was my elder sister, I needed her to see me as equal, not seeing me like just one little thing considering the age difference. From what my friends also told me about their sisters, I came to know that it is always the same everywhere. As one of my friends quoted “My friend is closer to me than my sister”. I have always wondered why sisters are so competitive and girls in general are like rivals, until I heard that females have “FISH BRAIN” (?) This helped me to resolve a lot of problems about why females behave the way they do. They have such little minds compared to males. I remembered little things my elder sister and I quarreled    about, whereas if it were the males, they would have just shoved them off. So many a times, I have had to force myself off funny thoughts like “who is better, who is the most intelligent, who is the most loved and so on, which made me feel bad about the way female are. But what kept me going was the fact that females have little brains and men should learn to tolerate them no matter how childish or unreasonable they may be. Silva This is a very good topic. I want to make my own contributions from a national point of view. Every time I look at our women in the papers, I mean, our so called women that have either been elected into public positions or have been appointed to positions by the men, I have not seen what they can point to that they have done, either better than the men, or differently in favour of the women of this country. If you have been following the history of the struggle for women empowerment everywhere across the continent, you will see that the Nigerian case is a peculiar one. 15-20 years ago in this country, you could count on your finger tips, the number of women in important decision making positions. All the women there today rose on the platform of those struggles    by serious and visionary activities of individuals and NGOs, both local and international, yet very few of them will acknowledge this when they get to this positions. As soon as they get there, they deny their womanhood and put on a sexless toga or worse still, become men. I have heard some of them make silly statements such as “I am not here because of women, I am here because of all Nigerians”, “It is not only women that voted for me, in fact, more men than women voted for me to come here”. Even when among their male colleagues, they feel that talking about women issues or supporting them will reduce their rating with the men. So, rather than promote and support things that will uplift the women of this country, they have joined the men in further doing damage to the future of our children, women and ultimately, the country. Look at the shabby treatment that the gender bill was given, yet there are women in that National Assembly. Look at what they did during the constitutional review. As a man I was not impressed, as a Nigerian, I am not impressed either.    It is unfortunate to discover that some of them have proven that they can even steal, misappropriate, mismanage public funds more than their male colleagues, despite the fact that women are known to protect, nurture and beautify things. One look at most of our women in leadership positions and you will see corruption written all over them. even at a glance. How do they want to improve the lot of other women when the first thing they want to do is show them that they have hit gold and are better than them? On the international scene, every year, you get to see one African woman doing one outstanding and innovative thing or the other to help or elevate her community. Some win awards for these little contributions, while some even get financial assistance for encouragement and improvement of these feats. How many of our women in top positions get nominated for anything they did to improve the lot of other women? Then, there are the First Ladies who parade themselves as having the interest of the women and children of this nation at heart through their phantom and shallow NGO activities. Since the introduction of the Office of the First Lady into our social psyche, how many of them have embarked on projects worth life time legacies that impact on the society, besides buying hair driers, motorcycle, grinding machines and portable generators? Are these the ways to develop and improve societies? If these NGOs are not scam machines, how many of them outlive the tenure of their initiators? I can count them on my finger tips. Mrs. Fayemi is one of them. Please let us call a spade by its name. When you take all of these with what havoc women wreak on each other on a personal level, then, you will know that truly, women, at least, in this part of the world, are their own worst enemies for now. Only God can save them. Princess I disagree totally with that notion. It is a ploy used against women by men to keep us divided so that they can continue to dominate us. Women are wiser now. I have an NGO and work mainly with indigent    girls and young women. We try to take them off the streets, rehabilitate them and even send them to school. Many have graduated through our effort. Are we not women helping other women. I think what we have is lack of education and exposure. For the women who act under the guise of culture and tradition to wreak havoc and make life difficult for other women, one cannot entirely blame them. It is the lifestyle they know and have practised and they do not know better. They have to be educated on the consequences of their actions. I cannot speak on private or personal relationships. That depends largely on the individuals involved. Simon  I entirely agree with this notion. If it were not so, people would not have come up with the idea. It is something that I see around me all the time, even at home with my nuclear family. While we were growing up, apart from the fact that parents tend to treat male and female children differently, the way my mother also treated my two female siblings was something out of the ordinary. Some of the things she would otherwise permit us the boys to do were not permitted for the females and this had nothing to do with gender. For instance, she would give us more money than she would give to them on the pretence that they ought to learn to be prudent being women. If it becomes very glaring that there is a preferential undertone, she would use the age difference. By the time we were all grown up, the girls had taken special likeness for our father, whom they preferred to tell all their secrets to, rather than our mother. The irony of it was that she did not totally have the devotion and attention she wanted from my older brother at the end of the day. That one’s wife took him away from her clutches all together. Being women, I would have thought that there should be no acrimony between them as such. Presently, I work with a first generation bank under the supervision of a woman. I have two other ladies in my unit under the same woman. I can’t begin to recount how shabbily they all treat each other. The woman always does things with scorn, making most of the ordinary things look very serious. She talks about them behind their backs just as they do same for her. Her nick name is cookie-monster after the popular Sesame street character, while she calls them “Asewo”. While they are all praying to see her back one day, the two ladies with us now are still the longest on record as her subordinates. Those who can’t stand her plead they would do almost anything for transfer. As for me, this is my third year with her and I have no problems absolutely. In fact, cookie-monster sometimes invites me to have nice meals with her. And just before your minds starts drifting, no indecent propositions have been made so far, and I doubt she is that sort of person. Most of the women I have come across have at one time or the other displayed this same tendencies. I will not call it hate, maybe disaffection is okay. Very few of them show true love to each other. I am always surprised at the amount of enmity that suddenly springs up between two hitherto best of friends whenever the so-called friendship goes wrong. Rather than move on and just keep a cordial relationship, they may either ignore each other as if they were never once acquainted, or pull each other down at every opportunity. Some even go to a worse extent, such that you will wonder if truly they once shared anything good between them, or their relationship was based on falsehood all along. Some say that it is the way things have always been and will continue to be with women. Should that be the case, then, there is nothing anyone can do. Gladys I think it has to do with the situation women in this part have found themselves. The system is so bad that you have to struggle for everything you want. And who do you get it from, the men. So you see that in their personal and public life, it is a struggle to survive. And the woman’s major rival is the other woman. So, your fellow woman becomes the target to beat if you want to make it to the top. However, it is what they do on getting to the top that needs to be re-examined. Are you pulling younger women along as you climb? Are you using that position to correct the wrong done against women? Or are you one of those who believe others must pass through the ordeals you went through, if they also want to succeed? As for personal relationships, I doubt there is much anyone can do about that. It’s unfortunate though. Do have a wonderful weekend!!