LET’S TALK: EQUAL RIGHTS OR WOMEN'S RIGHT???

By ANTHONIA IDEGWU

It is baffling how when I sit to watch the news, I see educated Nigerian women, in power, fighting for equal rights for the Nigerian woman to the Nigerian man, all under the guise of being stripped of any right by our African culture (or in this case, Nigerian culture). Let me stress this again, they are EDUCATED women!


Let’s go down memory lane to a subject we
detested in school; Almighty MATHEMATICS.  So in this special subject, we were taught how powerful the EQUAL sign is. If you think deeper, you can remember there is something else that was taught, EQUIVALENCE.

Let me break it down: 6 Agbalumo is equal to 6 Agbalumo, but 6 Agbalumo can never be equal to 6 Mangoes, rather, 6 Agbalumo is equivalent to 6 Mangoes. Do you understand this? The equal to, is such a powerful tool, that can only be used when the two comparative quantities are the same, not almost the same!

Yelling through a TV screen asking for equal rights as the men, is doing the proverbial “biting more than you can chew”, not just because, it was well clearly stated in the bible that women are the weaker vessels, or because by nature women are more squirmish and take emotions to another level, but because we are women and there are some things you just shouldn’t do.

Asking for equal rights means the following:
**If a man can hammer twenty nails into the wall per minute, a woman should too, regardless of whether the hammer is heavier than her body weight as a whole.

**If a man can be permitted  an official leave for a month just once a year, a woman too, should be permitted an official leave for just a month, once a year too, regardless of if she’s about to give birth.

**If there is a queue that has pregnant women on, no preference should be given to them, after all, the men are standing too.

**In school, when all the Students are being flogged, if the boys are receiving 10 strokes each, the girls too should receive 10 strokes, as well.

**How women shouldn’t be exempted from work because of their menstrual cramps no matter how bad it is, after all, men don’t get a day off too.

How do you like equality now?

Whenever I have meetings outside the office, the men would let me carry just my hand bag while they handle all the heavy lifting, they would say, “ah, you want to carry the Ghana must go? Between you and the bag, who will carry who?!” sometimes they would run across the car to open the door for me to step out, and when we go to eat, they make sure I get my food first. I mean, I shouldn’t be entitled to such pampering if I am supposed to have equal rights with them, right?

I expect our learned female heroes to insist that the EQUAL RIGHTS song be abolished and a new act, WOMEN RIGHTS, be created, that way, we save ourselves the unplanned stress we are getting ourselves into, we are so lucky none of the men in power has figured this twist against our women folk yet! Our bodies are not built to be equated to the men, so unless, you know you can go on a pregnancy leave for just a month, EQUAL RIGHTS, should be expunged!