Pre-script:
Since I got back to writing about feminism again, I have really learnt how to have hard conversations. It sometimes feel like walking on eggshells, but I think as humans we have to learn to walk on eggshells and break those figurative eggshells to be better humans and to get out of our artificial intellectual silos.
This pre-script is to acknowledge and appreciate the female feminists who I share drafts of these articles with whenever they are written, so as to get their opinion and address any blind spots that may come from my conditioning as a man in a patriarchal society.
This is important because, for hard topics, silence is not the answer. The answer is more and richer conversation, and we must therefore appreciate those who make that conversation easier.
This is the second article in a series of articles to argue for the perspective that Gender Equality is not achievable without a Gender Unity between equals.
To read the first one, follow the link here.
This series is directed at everyone as the audience because we all should be feminists.
It is directed at women who are scared to identify as feminists because they’re scared that it would make them look like they are bitter.
It is directed at men who are feminists or who want to do better.
It is directed at women who are feminists and are struggling with the temptation to not conflate the evils of patriarchy with the evils of men.
It is directed at men who feel threatened that dismantling patriarchy would mean disconcombulating them as an individual.
And it is directed at queer people who are constantly told how to be in a society that has strict definitions for how the masculine and the feminine should be.
No writing is ever completely done, so opinions on everything here are welcome (especially to keep this tough conversation going).
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Few days ago, I shared a post about heterosexual women who think that feminism is just a tool to nag men into treating them better in relationships. I did not share that post from the perspective of a man who wants to dismiss the efforts of feminists (female or male feminists) by puncturing a hole in their efforts. I shared it as a male feminist who believes that the solution to patriarchy must be co-created by everybody.
I say that as someone who has witnessed a lot of heterosexual women replace their victimhood in the hands of patriarchal conditioning with a constant painful disavowal of ALL MEN in their conversations, or a forced abstinence from sex with men, or outright misandry and hatred for men.
I also say this as a man who rejects and renounces the automatic macho response to this issue, which is to say “I don’t want women to like me too.”
I say this because I know decentering men is not the same as disliking or rejecting all men.
Instead, it involves refusing to treat men (especially their approval, presence, or gaze) as the central axis of decision-making or identity formation.
Without patronising or dismissing, the goal of this article is not to replicate the patriarchal reality of men telling women what to do or how to do it, but it is to reach out across the gender divide so that we can reason together.
I don’t have the right to tell anyone what feminism is or what it is not. It is not in anybody’s place. This is an attempt to make us reason together on this topic. While I am not here to vilify anyone by calling them misandrists, I am writing this because I think fighting patriarchy has to be passionate but may not have to be so emotionally painful. If it is possible to reduce that pain by opening our minds to alternative approaches, I think that would be great.
I think we all (especially women) have the right to be embittered by patriarchy and I believe that anger at injustice is valid.
I am writing this because I think it is arguably possible for women (and everyone else) who fight patriarchy to decenter men without allowing any bitterness that comes with the anger to seep into our own souls.
If we allow it to seep in freely, then it could defeat the goal of decentering men if they now have a space inside ones soul. In that situation, MEN are now at the center of ones emotions and expressions, even when those emotions and expressions are negative.
If it is possible to reduce the emotional pain that comes with fighting a system like patriarchy, this article will only try to make suggestions in that line without trying to dictate what anyone should or must do.
Meanwhile, decentering men is very important because it ruptures the symbolic order of patriarchy that renders the male subject the gravitational center of meaning, value, and legitimacy.
Decentering men can be structural, like challenging the androcentric defaults that shape medicine, economics, storytelling, city planning, and even scientific imagination (e.g. default crash test dummies, dosage trials, educational texts).
Decentering men can be personal, like refusing to calibrate one’s self-worth, desires, and actions around male validation, presence, or gaze, resisting the urge to “fix” men or be chosen by them.
Decentering men can be relational, like embracing reciprocal, non-hierarchical relationships where women are not instruments or satellites of male ambition.
Like someone perfectly said:
“De-centering is about no longer being in orbit around the masculine sun.”
Now we know what decentering men is and what it is not, what is left is to know how to walk that line between both.
The truth is that there is no clear line, whether thin or thick, so women who try to decenter men would run into the risk of hating men once in a while, especially with all the macho aggression that exist in the world.
It is a spectrum and we all try to strike a balance. Therefore, the best we can do is to help ourselves understand the goal of decentering men, so that even when we stray from the path sometimes, we can use our knowledge of the goal to recalibrate.
Decentering men is a goal that most feminist women aspire towards, and that journey has a process of centering women’s experiences, goals, and autonomy in both private and public spheres.
Centring women can mean women will dress for themselves, instead of dressing or making up their appearances for the male gaze.
We have to make peace with the fact that the difference is sometimes hard to find because women have been trained to dress for the male gaze since they were children, so it would sometimes be hard for a woman to decide whether a dressing that makes her feel good is because of years of patriarchal conditioning or because it truly makes her feel good.
Centering women can mean women will refuse to do disproportionate emotional labor and caretaking for men. This can also be hard when you’re unable to spot the difference between a man who does not presently have the capacity to reciprocate a form of effort or care because of their years of conditioning and a man who has the capacity but is lacking in the willpower to confront patriarchy with you.
Centering women can mean women will refuse to tie their career goals and life choices to men’s opinions or presence. This can be very hard when some opportunities to move closer to those career goals or life choices can be tied to your proximity to a man.
Some landlords in Nigeria would refuse to rent an apartment to single women.
Some place of work would demand that a married woman should only have her husband as her guarantor for employment at the workplace, and some workplaces would not employ single moms.
These are factors that can make a woman feel compelled to get married, even if her own path towards decentering men requires that she should not marry or that she should not marry yet or that she should get a divorce.
The goal of decentering men is not so that you can appear as a purer feminist that does not relate well with men.
The goal of decentering men is not to keep more female friends or have a sisterhood so that you will not be judged by your sisters as a pick-me.
This goal is because everyone (every human being) should be able to center their own individual agency, woman or man.
But then, patriarchy already justifies men centering themselves.
The goal is to unlearn internalized patriarchy, redistribute your attention and energy equally across all genders, and build a self-defined life that gives you the chance to actually contribute your part to the fight against patriarchy on a more structural level.
It is not a rigid dogma, nor is it a universal checklist.
It is a spectrum of decisions and reflections rooted in the following question that you should always ask yourself:
“Whose gaze, needs, and narratives are at the center of my choices?”
The answer doesn’t have to be perfect.
It just has to be yours.
Your answer.
Make sure its not your social conditioning in patriarchy that is answering that question.
✌️
Omole Ibukun
