When I was reading Ijeoma story she says there are four commandments incorporating what a womans responsibilities are to her family which include: “her office is a kitchen, she is responsible for ALL the chores in the home, she is accountable for the children and their actions, and she must pledge total allegiance to the man”. I legit had to read this twice to make sure I was seeing that correctly. Now I understand that the culture in Nigeria is different than here in America, but I think those rules are another form of enslavement. (don’t take this the wrong way) In addition the whole idea that a woman marry and have children. Saying things like that puts a lot of pressure on women. And this just continues the vicious cycle of women conforming to the needs of men.
When I was reading Pascoes excerpt, makes so many point but these hit a nerve. he writes “boys lay to claim to masculine identities by lobbing homophobia epithets at one another….they also assert masculine selves by engaging in heterosexist discussion of girls bodies and their own sexual experiences”. Hearing this is so funny/ ironic because men do all of this to “prove” their manlyness/ masculinity TO OTHER MEN!!! Men feel like the only way to assert their dominance is by calling other males homophobic slurs and degrading women, like who said that please let me know. Or homophobia, don’t even get me started.. because the suffix phobia is defined as a fear. So technically speaking men who are homophobic have a fear of homosexual men but then the wouldn’t make sense cause why would you as a big and strong, super manly man be scared of another man right? anyways… yea *chuckles*
Honestly growing up it wasn’t like Ijeoma story having to clean up after males in my family or make sure they are taken care or but it was more in the aspect of trying to explore the way my brothers did. Like if i would ask my mom to go to a party or go out she is telling how something happened to a girl like kidnapped or something… never to my brothers though. Its like males are invincible right? I guess indirectly I was subject to norms like acting a certain way, and speaking a certain way as well. Girls are supposed to wear this… girls are supposed to talk like this. Is that fair? no.
