Priscilla Ojo Mbakala is the new Annie in the making; the poster child for the only choices patriarchy allows women to make while constantly lying and giving women the illusions that it’s our choices to make and not mandatory societal rules for us to follow.
With all my heart, I only wish she does not end up like Annie; heartbroken, destroyed self-esteem with severe codependency, crushed dreams and being like THAT in her 40s.
I hope I don’t end up like that when I’m in my 40s; I obviously can’t because I’m making different choices.
This is not about Priscilla; it’s much bigger than her.
This is about a system that punishes any woman that deviates from the script.
She was celebrated as if she did something out of the ordinary and there we have it, having the subconscious conditioning reinforced in women.
That the only time you’re celebrated is when you get married, or have kids or become a housewife and the “good woman” prize is bestowed upon you.
The mirage has been perfectly painted with Priscilla; that making these choices bring celebration and happiness.
And if we deviate from any of these, we’d be sad, lonely, and miserable and live with cats for the rest of our lives.
Have you met cats? I’d choose many cats over whatever the fuck patriarchy is offering me.
But it is a LIE.
We don’t have to go to school, graduate, get married early, and quickly run to the social media to disgustingly explain that our partners met us as virgins.
We don’t have to get married at all, we don’t need to have kids.
All of these are simply societal constructs but you may not believe me because the society makes it hard to survive if we decide to break out of the matrix.
I’ve had my own fair share of suffering because of it but the thing is even the people who make societal-conforming choices also suffer so we may as well just choose our poison.
C’est la vie.
But the point here is the society doesn’t allow people to choose their own poison; at least you’d be happy to suffer the consequences and enjoy the benefits if it’s truly the choices you have made for yourself independent of the society.
I’d quickly slip in a trick, little yet profound, that has made my happiness threshold higher than average.
Never put pieces of paper (money) over humanity.
I have been happy.
And I have been more than surviving.
I am thriving.
We can do the opposite of everything the society asks us to do as women and we will be fine, happy and very fulfilled.
We can choose to have multiple partners of different genders.
We can choose to be sex workers.
We can choose to be trans.
We can choose to have kids via donors and decide we’d have men as just sexual partners.
We can choose to go into politics.
We can choose to fight at the barricades and not stay at home while the men decide what happens to all of us.
We can decide to travel the world.
We can decide to stand up for the less privileged.
We can have so many other causes other than being at home, making babies and being the societal feather to a man’s cap.
We can choose to rebel in everything.
Not only do well-behaved women seldom make history, but they are also miserable and caged all their lives and get mad at any other woman who seems to be freer than they are.
Behind the camera and make-up and filter, the realities are there.
Priscilla has been packaged quite alright, but you and I both know that her case is one in a million of women who make these choices.
They don’t have as much money and never will.
They don’t have as much fame and never will.
They will never have access to so many places and things that Priscilla has access to.
Yet it’s painted that all other women have to do is to make the choices she has made and they’ll get the same results.
What’s even worse about these patriarchal choices is that these things don’t save you at the end of the day.
Fame and money cannot save you; it’s evident with what’s happening to Regina Daniels and Chioma almost getting fingered on camera by Davido so he could “put her in his place.”
Education doesn’t save you as it’s evident in even lawyers getting unalived by their partners.
“Make your own money” doesn’t save you; please look at Annie and her net worth yet she’s like THAT.
The only person who seems to be different is May Edochie; and that’s because she’s making choices that are way different form what patriarchy would have wanted her to do.
It’s almost as if we want to sit down and ask patriarchy to treat us nicely; no oppressive system will give you rights or freedom by asking it nicely.
You protest and fiercely fight back in every way you can and that includes making hard radical choices that involve you giving the society the middle finger!
I sincerely think that we are very lazy compared to women who had to fight for all the few rights we currently enjoy.
It’s either women are still making patriarchal choices and insisting it’s their choices while never advocating for other women to make choices different from theirs, or we have “feminists” making these patriarchal choices and insisting they’re feminist choices after all.
It is women’s “choice” to marry.
Pray tell, why do women who don’t want to marry and have kids have to fight tooth and nail to also make their own “choices”?
Why are women constantly harassed to go and marry?
Would an unmarried child-free woman be ever celebrated the way Priscilla was?
These are the questions.
Dasola Tewogbade (Sisí Afrika)
