Not long ago, I wrote an article about what it means to be young and female in Lagos and an acquaintance told me it was an angry article. Of course it was angry. Gender as it functions today is a grave injustice. We should all be angry. Anger has a long history of bringing about positive change. But I am also hopeful, because I believe deeply in the ability of human beings to remake themselves for the better.
Gender matters everywhere. And I would like today to ask that we begin to dream about and plan for a different world. A fairer world. A world of happier men and happier women who are truer to themselves. And this is how to start: we must raise our daughters differently. We must also raise our sons differently. We do a great disservice to boys in how we raise them. We stifle the humanity of boys. We define masculinity in a very narrow way. Masculinity is a hard small cage and we put boys inside this cage. We teach boys to be afraid of fear, of weakness, of vulnerability. We teach them to mask their true selves because they have to be, in Nigerian-speak, a hard man.
But by making them feel they have to be hard, we leave them with fragile egos. The harder a man feels compelled to be, the weaker his ego is.
And then we do a much greater disservice to girls because we raise them to cater to the fragile egos of males.
We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, “You can have ambition, but not too much. Aim to be successful, but not too successful, otherwise you would threaten the man. If you are the breadwinner in your relationship with a man, pretend that you’re not, especially in public, otherwise you will emasculate him.”
But what if we question the premise? Why should a woman’s success be a threat to a man? What if we decide simply to dispose of that word (and I don’t think there is an English word I dislike more) emasculation.
A Nigerian acquaintance once asked me if I worried that men would be intimidated by me. It had not occurred to me to be worried, because a man who is intimidated by me is the kind of man I would have no interest in. Still, I was struck by this. Because as a female, I’m expected to make my life choices keeping in mind that marriage is the most important.
Marriage can be a source of joy and love and mutual support, but why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don’t teach boys the same?
We all internalize ideas from our socialization. The language of marriage is often the language of ownership, rather than the language of partnership.
Both men and women will say: “I did it for peace in my marriage.” When men say it, it is usually about something they should not be doing anyway. It is something they say to their friends in a fondly exasperated way, something that ultimately proves their masculinity. “Oh, my wife said I can’t go to clubs every night, so now, for peace in my marriage, I go only on weekends.” When women say “I did it for peace in my marriage,” it is usually because they have given up a job, a goal, a dream. We teach females that in relationships, compromise is what women do. We raise girls to see each other as competitors for the attention of men. We teach girls they cannot be sexual beings in the way boys are. We police girls. We praise girls for virginity, but we don’t praise boys for virginity (and that makes me wonder how exactly this loss of virginity is supposed to work . . .).
We teach girls shame. Close your legs. Cover yourself. We make them feel as though by being born female they’re already guilty of something. So girls grow up to be women who cannot say they have desire. Who silence themselves. Who cannot say what they truly think. Who have turned pretence into an art form.
Imagine how much happier we would be, how much freer to be our true individual selves, if we didn’t have the weight of gender expectations.
Boys and girls are undeniably different biologically, but socialization exaggerates the differences, and then it becomes a self-fulfilling process. What if, in raising children, we focus on ability instead of gender? What if we focus on interest instead of gender?
I’m trying to unlearn many lessons of gender internalized while growing up. But I sometimes still feel vulnerable in the face of gender expectations.
The first time I taught a writing class in graduate school, I was worried. Not about the teaching material, because I was well prepared and was teaching what I enjoyed. Instead I was worried about what to wear. I wanted to be taken seriously. I knew that because I was female, I would automatically have to prove my worth. And I was worried that if I looked too feminine, I would not be taken seriously. I really wanted to wear my shiny lip gloss and my girly skirt, but I decided not to. I wore a very serious, very manly, and very ugly suit.
The sad truth is that when it comes to appearance, we start with men as the standard, the norm. A man going to a business meeting doesn’t worry about being taken seriously based on what he is wearing—but a woman does.
I wish had not worn that ugly suit. Had I, then, the confidence I have now to be myself, my students would have benefited even more from my teaching, because I would have been more comfortable, and more truly myself.
I have chosen to no longer be apologetic for my femininity. I want to be respected in all my femaleness. Because I deserve to be. The “male gaze”, as a shaper of my life’s choices, is largely incidental.
Gender is not an easy conversation to have. Both men and women are resistant to talking about gender, or are quick to dismiss the problems.
Some people ask, “Why feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights?” Because that would be dishonest. It would be to deny that the problem was specifically about being a female human.
Some men feel threatened by the idea of feminism. This comes, I think, from the insecurity triggered by how boys are brought up, how their sense of self-worth is diminished if they are not “naturally” in charge as men.
Other men respond, “I don’t think like that. I don’t even think about gender.”
Maybe not. And that is part of the problem. That many men do not actively think about or notice gender.
Because gender can be uncomfortable, there are easy ways to close this conversation.
Some people will say, “Well, poor men also have a hard time.” And they do. But gender and class are different. Poor men still have the privileges of being men. I learned a lot about systems of oppression and how they can be blind to one another by talking to black men. I was once talking about gender and a man said to me, “Why does it have to be you as a woman? Why not you as a human being?” (The same man, by the way, would often talk about his experience as a black man.)
Gender matters. Men and women experience the world differently. Gender colours the way we experience the world. But we can change that.
Some people say that a woman being subordinate to a man is our culture. But culture is constantly changing. Culture does not make people. People make culture. If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it our culture.
My dear friend Okoloma was right, that day he called me a feminist. I am a feminist. And when, all those years ago, I looked the word up in the dictionary, it said: Feminist: a person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.
My great-grandmother, from stories I’ve heard, was a feminist. She ran away from the house of the man she did not want to marry and married the man of her choice. She refused, she protested, spoke up whenever she felt she was being deprived of land and access because she was female. She did not know that word feminist. But it doesn’t mean she wasn’t one. More of us should reclaim that word. The best feminist I know is my brother Kene, who is also a kind, good-looking and very masculine young man. My own definition of a feminist is a man or a woman who says, “Yes, there’s a problem with gender as it is today and we must fix it, we must do better.”
All of us, women and men, must do better.
Zoe Adjonyoh
Born to a Ghanaian father and Irish mother, she is a writer and cook from London on a mission to bring African food to the masses. She deepened her understa
nding of West African cuisine after a trip to visit her extended family in Ghana. Described by The Observer as a “standard bearer for West African food” and picked by Nigel Slater as one to watch on the topic of immigrant food in Britain, she has been making waves in the food scene ever since her first sell-out supper clubs in 2011. She has taken her fresh interpretation of classic Ghanaian flavours to pop-up venues across London and Berlin, as well as prominent street food festivals around the UK. Named as one of “London’s hottest chefs” by Time Out, she launched her first fixed restaurant space in 2015, at shipping container community project Pop Brixton. Her debut cookbook Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen was published in 2017.
A Beautiful Story
Most women worry about turning into their mothers. I worry about turning into my father. Waiting outside Costa Coffee next to Woolwich Arsenal DLR station, I see my father—Charles—lumbering towards me. He is not hard to spot at six-foot-three, with his grey-speckled Afro. The burnt-orange corduroy suit with yellow striped tie and baby-blue shirt is hard to ignore. There is something dapper and reassuring about his appearance: it tells me he is feeling alright. He likes to dress up for an occasion and today, meeting me for coffee, appears to be that. His walk has changed in recent years: his once long, confident stride is now the heavy-footed shuffle of an old, tired man, though he is only fifty-five. He hasn’t seen me yet so I pause to take him in. His limp seems to have worsened and his head dangles in front of stooped shoulders like a cartoon vulture. His hair, springing unevenly, needs a cut. I’ll give him some cash later to get that sorted but now I watch how he looks at people, up and down, with narrow, critical eyes. What is he thinking? Do I look at people like that? Who is that he just smiled and waved at across the street? They don’t seem to know him.
“Dad! Dad!” I self-consciously stick my hand in the air and motion him over.
“Hello, dah-ling—” His “darling” is always a spaced-out sing-song. His lips curl back and he smiles widely. I see the gaps where he has recently had several rotten teeth removed.
“How are you, my dah-ling—, what have you done to your hair? Did you comb it today?” he says, pulling at my Afro. “It looks different.” He means it looks messy and he’s right.
“Who was that you were waving at?” I ask.
“Just a friend.”
I always have mixed feelings of dread and relief when we meet up. Dread because, after our initial greeting, little is said between us. We stare past each other, into a middle distance where we will never meet halfway. Relief because seeing him dissipates any guilt, however briefly, about neglecting his welfare—while he is in front of me, at least, he is fine.
In the coffee shop we exchange the usual “How are yous?” and monosyllabic responses once we are seated. I watch him empty five sachets of sugar into his cup.
“Five sugars, Dad?”
“They’re only small,” he says, laughing into the thick stir.
“That will be why you’ve barely got any teeth left—”
His laugh slips into a wry smile, which I read as “I used to change your nappies you know . . .”
I wonder what the woman who used to change his nappies, Cecilia Quansah, my grandmother, would think if she could see him as he is today.
I feel the small rush of air cloak us as someone enters the café—they appear to have captured Dad’s attention. He eyes them like a private detective in a 1950s crime novel. Furtive slurps of sugary coffee between long, loud glances. He never could be discreet.
“Dad!” Despite feeling like an exclamation it’s more of a stage whisper.
No reply.
“Dad? What are you looking at?” I glance back over my shoulder to cast my own suspicious eye over the elderly intruder. “Stop staring.”
“Huh?” He rocks back into his chair like a judge who has just delivered a stern but fair sentence. His forehead gradually unfurls and he smiles.
“Anyway, Dad, what have you been up to?”
“Oh, you know . . .”
I have an idea but I don’t know. What I do know is there’s no point pressing him too hard, so we sit in customary silence after a short report on my journey here.
Some inane small-talk is about to flurry from my lips but then something makes me pause. His eyes brighten and he is half-holding, half-stroking my hand with his giant dry palms. I should get him some moisturising cream, I think. It is thanks to watching him smear Nivea all over himself when I was a child that I now have the ritual of lathering myself with cocoa butter every day.
“Give me your email address—” he says abruptly.
“Umm, why do you want it, Dad? What are you going to send me?”
“It’s very important and I want you to have it.”
I give a fatigued sigh. There are good reasons why I want to withhold it.
“Yes, Dad, but what is it?”
“It’s my life story. It’s a very beautiful story.”
I am momentarily suspended in disbelief. I have attempted on a few awkward occasions to glean information from him about his childhood, his ever distant and mysterious family back in Accra. His standard response has been to remain mute or reply with detached puzzlement—“Why do you want to know?” Very rarely, nuggets of information have emerged with unexpected candour. A month ago when I came to visit him I blurted out the question:
“When did you actually come here, Dad—to England? I’d just like to know.”
After only a moment’s hesitancy and some searching looks at my inquisitive face he delivered a string of sequential sentences:
“Sixteen. I was sixteen. After school . . . I stayed with Auntie Beatrice. In Brixton.”
“Auntie Beatrice? Who’s that? I didn’t know you had an aunt in Brixton.”
“You’ve met her—haven’t you?”
“No, Dad. I’ve never heard of her before.”
“Oh.” He laughs.
I later learn that “Auntie” and indeed “Uncle” are respectful pronouns in Ghanaian culture for anyone older than you.
Now, I wonder whether, through some father-daughter telepathy, he has read my thoughts as I’ve sat here measuring the creases on his face, pondering if I’ll ever know anything real about him. Has he been keeping a journal? Where was this holy grail of a document? I wanted it then and there.
“Life story—” I say, pointing my head at him. “YOUR—life—story?”
He is nodding like a savant now, evidently very pleased with himself.
“How long have you been writing that then?”
“The last year.”
“Really?” Writing! I’ve always wondered where that pulse inside me came from. I lean forward, staring at him with amazement. A sizzle of flashbacks: every promise ever made, every amputated attempt to ask him questions . . . Could this really be true? The devil of doubt sneaks up on me before I even realise.
“And why did you decide to write it?”
“For myself—and to share with you.”
Time slows over the lacquered table-top space between us while the buses and people outside whoosh anonymously by. I feel the wells of my eyes trying to push up water. To think that some invisible, below-the-radar bond has formed between us over the past year where he understands what I want from him . . . “Dad—that’s amazing!”
He is openly laughing now at my incredulity. I imagine that’s why he’s laughing, though he could be re-visiting a joke he heard years ago for all I know. I put aside everything I do know about him for the sake of everything I don’t. My desire to have this information and believe that what he is telling me is true is overpowering. “Don’t show it to anybody.”
“Of course not.” Wait till I tell Mum about this.
“When does it start from?”
“1957—,” his date of birth, “well, the mid-’60s really, I suppose, in my childhood. You’ll be shocked.”
“Shocked?” He’s included all the salacious stuff! Amazing.
“It starts now and goes backwards and
forwards in time—”
I wonder what his style is like, probably quite formal, like his letters were.
“—do you want me to send you a preview?”
“Yes, yes, please!” I’m excited. “Thank you, Dad.”
“But don’t show anybody.”
“OK. I won’t.”
“It’s a very beautiful story. What’s happened to us, our dreams and hopes for the future. Don’t discuss it, though.”
“OK, Dad.”
As we say our goodbyes I palm him a twenty-pound note so that he can get a haircut, knowing it will only cost a fiver and that he will waste the rest of the money and the day in an Internet café. I suppose the cash is some kind of reward for his Good News. When we part company I feel as excited as when he had promised to send me to New York following my GCSEs as a reward for better than average results. In that instance the plan was foiled by the over-protectiveness of all my friends’ parents who would not let any of them accompany me. He can do that even now, instil a sense of impossible hope. The success of his last recovery, his last sojourn into reality, his last version of a more ordinary life, had lasted nearly three years.
On the train journey home, I open my notebook and pen an account of the revelation. As I write in heart-racing scribble, my pen abruptly hovers and holds mid-air. Can I trust him? He’s only been back on medication these last six weeks. He would have had to be writing it while still in the efflorescence of his particular madness. The chances of my opening an email from him that would fill in the last fifty-odd years of his life suddenly feels as remote as Mamprobi, Accra, where he is from and where I have longed for him to take me.
At home I don’t rush to turn on my laptop. I tidy. I fidget. I pace. I scroll through the contacts on my phone and see “Mum” but I don’t call. After fifteen minutes, three cigarettes and one and a half cups of tea I hunch over the open laptop, then stand up, then sit down, then open my Hotmail. My eyes scan the inbox—it’s full of junk. There it is, from Charles Kabu Adjonyoh. I look at the subject line. Wait, can that be it . . . U.N., START? I click to open it. The text reads:
New Daughters of Africa Page 62