The Oppression Of Nigerian Women

Institutional policies alongside religious and cultural norms, in Nigeria, permit and perpetuate men’s power and dominance over women. A variety of physically oppressive acts and institutional policies reinforce how Nigerian women are seen as subordinate to men in all aspects of life. American feminists have already recognized that sex acts and sexual violence, lack of access to adequate healthcare, and virtual non-existence of gender specific public policy are major challenges for women in their fight for equal rights. These were some of the major issues women confronted during America’s second wave of feminism. In Nigeria, women still fight for progress in these areas.

Kate Millett argued in her article, ‘Sexual Politics’, that in patriarchal societies, “men dominate women in sex, as they do in other aspects of life.” She argues that sex “itself appears a biological and physical activity, it is set so deeply within the larger context of human affairs that it serves as a charged microcosm of the variety of attitudes and values to which a culture subscribes.” As Millett has pointed out, the politics of sex permeate society and manifest as oppression of women in many sectors of society. Her theories about the power and violence men wield through sex are demonstrated in some of Nigeria’s practices and norms.

In Nigeria, sexual violence,

She writes that a man’s penis ”is now an instrument of chastisement, whereas (a female’s) genitalia are but the means of her humiliation.” Traditionally, Nigerian women play a passive role in sex, her active organ is removed through FGM to avoid promiscuity. Men are meant to enjoy sex but women have no right to do so and their right to even do so is removed through female genital mutilation. It is implied that women solely exist to satisfy her partner and for