Dave Chapelle, the American standup comedian once said that we are in the age of spin, where it feels as if everything is happening at the same time. We are in a world where decorum is overrun with social media realities and there is the need for reeducation and reevaluation of ourselves. One ideology in particular that has always sparked an intuitive, as well as a ridiculous approach to it, is that of appearance.
In the days of October 2020, Nigeria youth sparked a revolution against the highhandedness of institutional abuse. One of the many fingers that pointed at the police was their derogatory misinterpretation of appearance. Youths were profiled based on what they wore and not who they were. There was the need to extend the myopia of Nigerian morality where the freedom of choices was cuffed to what seems to be an appropriate coverage of all parts of the body. If we forgive the extent of our corruption and block our eyes to the cries of farmers in the north hiding from bandits and feeding on rot, the way people dress in Nigeria would still not make the trends on Why is Nigeria the way it is.
Recently, Amotekun, the local police in the southwestern part of Nigeria took it upon themselves to become moral judges in the fight against appearance, which was four planets away from the reasons they were created. They were seen harassing women who wore clothes that hung behind their knees and flogging women who wore trousers. Perhaps I am mistaken, maybe the local police were searching for the herdsmen in between these women’s clothes. The herdsmen who have been leaving a path of sorrow, tears, and cow dung in their path were probably hiding in the tears of the ladies crying against this harassment.
Recently, there was a conversation on Twitter after a lady shared how traumatic it was when she was inappropriately touched by men after she wore a short gown to the market in Yaba.
Below the comment sections were men and women inclusive laughing at her folly for wearing a short dress to a public space. The same men who cried against how inhumane it was that the police judged them only for what they saw them on? Is indecency now a crime only when men wear it? Or is the hypocrisy so revealing that we cannot help but stand disgusted at the patriarchy that thrives even in this age of spin?
If men do not want to be addressed the same way they are dressed, why can’t the women speak for such privilege? Why is sexual molestation justified because of skin exposure? You don’t see men molesting naked madwomen whenever they take their required long walks through the markets, do we? Is nakedness even a reason at all to justify sexual oppression? What is the undertone?
Men can’t control their instinct when they see a lady that is not their sister? And we wonder what anger drives women to call us ‘beast’, what emotion drives the mantra ‘men are scum’.
I recently escaped being robbed in Bariga. Ever since then, my sweat glands malfunction, and my heart threatens to jump out of my mouth even whenever I pass the crowded streets during the day. Everyone and anyone looks suspicious and my body jumps whenever I bump into anyone. If I can feel this after a near experience, imagine how it must feel for a lady to get harassed in a particular place, at a particular time.
How many times will the memory sleep in her thoughts even when she is awake? How she would avoid a whisp of the area or how hearing the name of the area will make any peace disappear as fleeting as they had come. Innovation comes with independence and if Nigeria cares about her youth, she should give us the freedom to grow.
Grow in dreams, in fashion, in sexuality, and in love. Appearance struck again when Nigerian women set the comment sections ablaze when they joined a trend on social media called the silhouette challenge. Dancing to the melody by Paul Anka, they went nude behind red lights and sensually displayed their bodies, protected by the red light of course.
There was the opinion of decency and the issue of morality was raised. Was it right or wrong that Nigerian women can go naked on social media to promote a trend? There was no question on what the trend represented. Men said it was a shame on the morality of women. Nudity was in no way appreciative of female wellness. Women said men spoke that way because they thought they had a right to a women’s body. Women called it a right to be able to express their femininity in any way they pleased.
An app was discovered to illuminate the red lights so that the ladies who had hopped on the challenge could have their nakedness seen without any interference. Women called it exploitation. Men called them prostitutes who should deal with the consequences of their actions. I expect nothing less from a nation where morality wears a clown costume. We are all preachers of our own hypocrisy. Who makes the laws on morality and who follows them accordingly? If women can hop on a challenge that exposes nudity, what did they expect from men who were seeking to tear off their clothes even when they were appropriately dressed.
What were men expecting from women who misinterpret the essence of feminism and jump on any trend to attract social relevance from the internet? I saw men who watched videos and videos of the silhouette challenge, wiped the Vaseline from their hands, and then went on Twitter to preach morality. Women judged ladies for doing in public what they did in private. If anything, social media will always expose the madness in our morals and if the hypocrisy does not make you vomit, then you haven’t been paying attention.
cc; taken from ‘I am not angry. I am just a Nigerian’. A collection of essays, written by Festus Obehi Destiny