Women In The Nigerian Workplace

We all know that as women, we must work twice as hard as men. In fact, in America, as a black woman, you are in most cases, the bottom of the food chain. You have got the White male, White female, Black male and then the Black female. You basically have to work 4 times harder than your colleagues/peers. In Nigeria, we don’t have white people, we are mostly of the same color but we have different tribes. However, we won’t get into the tribe thing. My focus here is on the issue of gender.

One will argue that as a woman in Nigeria, you have to work 4 times harder than men in order to be taken seriously. Half seriously even. You almost have to transform into a monster. Now, I can’t speak much of the private sector because I have done little research in that space (even though, I’ll imagine there is little to no difference), my focus is mostly on the public sector. I have aunties who are leaders  in 2 different government employment spaces and their experience in the work place pisses me off a great deal.

Aunty 1: She is often regarded as Iron lady. You know the Margaret Thatcher type that is ready to tear an employee down. She doesn’t speak to her workers, she yells at them. They can’t look her in the face. It’s all ‘yes ma’ when addressing her with an attention pose.  Well, my aunty isn’t this way because she wants to. She wasn’t born an iron lady but in order to survive the business, to maintain her rank, it is imperative that she isolates herself from anything feminine. She can’t be respectful, she can’t be calm, she can’t be nice to her worker otherwise she will be tagged as ‘weak’. Thus, she has carved out a character that she constantly emulates and as a result she is taken seriously –  well most times. My aunty is very single which makes things even harder for her. Because she doesn’t have a husband, she is exempted from certain benefits. Even with all the iron lady behavior, she is constantly looking to land a man in her life in order to validate herself – her existence in the work place.

Aunty 2: I was talking to my mom the other day, about how I wanted to get into a said government corporation that my aunty works for. And her response was yes, there is money there. A lot of money in fact, but it isn’t a woman’s job. I said but aunty works there and she seems to be doing very well. My mom said, “men use money to excel in this workspace but as women, you have to use money and your body” and she’ll rather I don’t get involved. Now, we know that in certain government jobs in Lagos, in order to get promotions or lucrative postings where you can as my people will say - “je deming”, you must first settle oga.

When it is time for a promotion, my aunt’s male colleagues go to their boss’ office and gives him an envelope or they have a god father that they settle and looks out for them. However, as a woman, she drops money and her pants. She obviously wants to get to the top and that is the price she has to pay. Either she does that or she remains stagnant or quit.

I have given these two illustrations not to bring up the issue of corruption in the county (that is a story for another day) but to highlight the different situations men and women are subjected to in the workplace. What pisses off is that people as identified with this as the norm, the way of life, our culture.  How can we identify an environment that treats women as a piece of meat as our culture. Arguably, these women work harder than men in the workplace yet they don’t get the same level of respect that their male colleagues get.

As young adults, we must take a stand. Frankly, I don’t understand why I need to act like a man in order to be taken seriously. I’m not a man after all, I’m a woman. But I still deserve the same level of respect. Some of us have started to move into the marriage phase and as such, we may or may not start having families. I believe it is very important to ensure we raise our children (male and female) to treat each other as equals. One will say that our parents were raised in an environment where they had limited exposure to the rest of the world which has shaped the way they raised us. In our time we have the internet, which has opened a lot of doors for us.  

I don’t believe that we must adopt all there is about the western world because that is not who we are. We are Nigerians after all. However, I believe certain aspects of the western world does not make sense just as I believe certain aspects of our culture needs fixing. I believe we must take advantage of our opportunity. Of our exposure. We have been opportune to see things beyond our confined niche. Now it is left to us to combine the best elements of both cultures while discarding the not so good elements. That way, we would have created the best of both worlds which dare I say, I believe is possible

Regards,

Female Feminist