It was a lovely day. The sun wasn’t too bright. People were milling about. Parents, siblings, guardians, grandparents and friends were smiling and laughing with each other. ‘Congratulations’ was in order. The fresh graduates were posing for group photographs. They were being cued by the man behind the camera on what to do at the count of three. As the graduates threw up their graduation caps, a friend standing close to me said, ‘The future belongs to women’.
I was too pre-occupied watching the graduates throw up their caps to pay any attention to what my friend said. But the statement remained in my subconscious. 20 years after it has bobbed up like a bad conscience. I looked at the photographs taken that lovely day to see what made Paul, my friend, say that the future was the women’s and I could see the reason. The female graduates outnumbered the males.
Activities happening around the developed world (or should I say the entire world) recently emanate from women or are about women. The Girl Power seems to be returning. Women are tired of staying behind ‘every successful’ man. Women are aware of the blunders in the political scene and they believe that they could bring in a feminine touch and soften the roughness at the edges. The chances of a woman President in the United States of America are very bright.
What’s sure in the United Kingdom is that a woman will surely be the next Prime Minister after David Cameron who’s a victim of Brexit. The leadership of the opposition party, Labour Party, is also being challenged by a woman, Angela Eagle. A woman was surely behind the treachery that forced Boris Johnson, former Mayor of London out of the race for No. 10 Downing Street. Michael Gove, current Justice Secretary in the UK, was a close pal of Boris Johnson. It’s believed that his wife, a newspaper columnist, spurred him on to ditch friendship and go for the top post himself.
Which loyal and ambitious wife wouldn’t do the same, especially when she believed that her partner was a better material than the one being advertised? Women can be very cunning and sly. I should know, I’m one of them. Sisters can also ditch sisterhood when driven by ambition. There’s no sisterhood when two women are in competition for attention or post as clearly demonstrated in the story below:
The Salt and The Shea-butter
Side by side
They were in the yard
‘She loves me more than you’
Says salt
‘What gave you that idea?’
Demands shea-butter
‘She can’t do without me’
‘Dream on’
‘You know she can’t do without me’
‘She needs me more than she does you’
‘How can you say such rubbish?’
‘She uses me morning, afternoon and evening.’
‘You’re the dreamer, aren’t you?’
‘No, she uses you only once a day when she cooks.’
‘She rubs me on her body at different times in the day.’
Clouds are gathering. The wind blows, a strong wind that blowing everything in its way. But it doesn’t blow either the salt or the shea-butter away.
‘I feel a drop, do you?’ says the shea-butter.
‘No, I don’t feel anything,’ says salt.
‘You aren’t worried about this rain, are you?’ says shea-butter.
‘No. I know she’ll come running to take me in, when the rain starts,’ says salt.
‘Oh yeah, we shall see.’
The rain starts as a drizzle.
Side by side they still stand in the yard, the salt and the shea-butter.
‘She hasn’t come for you yet – ha, ha, ha,’ teases shea-butter.
‘Oh shut up. How can you not show some concern?’
The rain gets heavier. Little by little salt melts. All alone shea-butter stands.
‘So long dear friend. I’m the one left standing,’ says shea-butter.
The rain finally stops. The sun filters through. At the beginning the heat isn’t felt.
The sun grows stronger. The heat is felt very much. The shea-butter is feeling the heat. The shea-butter can feel its body getting softer.
‘It’s been long now that she brought us out while cleaning the house.’
‘Seems she can’t even remember that?’
‘Few minutes ago, there I was laughing at my friend, salt.’
The sun is very strong now.
‘Ouch, I can feel my legs melting.’
‘Oh my arms are gone.’
And little by little, the shea-butter melts. By the time the woman comes out she meets neither the salt nor the shea-butter.
She sees only the oil dripping down the slope.
The case of the two women vying for the post of the Conservative Leadership in the UK – Theresa May and Andrea Leadsom – is comparable to the Salt and the Shea-butter in the story above. One of them is reported to have used motherhood to rile the other one. I felt that was a blow below the belt. Haters hoping the girls would made a slip may be chuckling now for there are already cracks in the rank. Women enjoy slagging each other off. There’s this ‘I beta pass my neighbour’ in our DNA. I envy men of their ‘esprit de corps’. They often stand shoulder to shoulder with each other in most circumstances. But sisters? For where! I’ve never heard of a man boasting that his manhood is much bigger than his friend’s. Besides motherhood isn’t one of the criteria of leadership.
Women can be cruel, nasty when eaten up with ambition. That doesn’t mean that there are women out there who strive to uplift other women. I’ve come across many of them in Nigeria, Africa and anywhere else. These women have put behind them the pettiness associated with sisterhood. From Washington to London, from Lagos to Cape Town the sands are shifting indeed below our feet. It’s now or never girls. Let’s celebrate women who have been a pride to women and men.
Women who espoused feminism, women who promoted feminocracy. These women past and present – here I think of Oya (Sango’s wife), Adunni Oluwole (she campaigned against independence for Nigeria) -who show that power isn’t in the bottom but in the personae. These women who, by their words and deeds, show us that the future is now and urge us to work the present so that the future will be ours. These women will be celebrated by Aurora in the future.
