RESPECT- a gesture that should be given to ALL women

I’ve found that people always say “Respect women, I respect women” and other variations of these, and this post isn’t targeted towards men alone, as women too are guilty of these. Especially older women, or women who generally think they’re better than some other group of women.

When people say they respect women, they mean they respect ONLY good women, and their definition of what a GOOD woman should be is always funny, not to say stupid. But here’s the thing, ALL women deserve respect, whether they fit your description of what a good woman should be or not. People always say that a woman dressing a certain way means that she doesn’t respect herself which is totally false and unfair. A woman can respect herself and still decide to show some skin, she can respect herself and still decide to be totally covered. Her choice!! Leave women alone and let them do whatever they want to do with themselves.

Take me for example, when I was in my service year, the security men in the estate I stayed in were particularly nice to me, and I found it cool. However an incident happened and armed robbers came to the estate leading to them tying the security men up and treating them unkindly. It was then that some other girls made fun of them and said they were always nasty to them, and then I argued they were actually nice people but as someone that has noticed that men are selective about the women they are decent too, I decided to study the security men a little more closely. I started noticing that they sometimes called me “My Good Corper” which meant to me that they thought some people were “bad corpers”. Then I analyzed it and realized that the reason they probably thought I was a good one was because I hardly go out with people, particularly men. I’m mostly indoors, when outside I’m quiet and gentle, I always greet and just keep to myself most of the time They on the other hand have friends over, go out with men and are generally just more outgoing. And that’s when I laughed because the security man at the hostel I stayed at in uni will beg to differ.

When I was in uni, my security men legit called me one day to give me “insider information” that police were arresting cultists and he knows I am a cultist but he likes me so that’s why he’s telling me so I should better tell my other “friends” to be careful and I was just there like wow???? Me? How? Wondering how he thought I was a cultist but he gave me that “don’t worry I know but I gotcha” look. If this man had thought that ONLY good girls deserved respect he’d probably have treated me nasty considering what he thought of me. But maybe he did because I was actually greeted and was generally respectful, despite the fact that I kept a whole lot of friends and they were the typical bad boys, but it still doesn’t make sense. And the fact that I no longer act like I used to when I was in uni doesn’t mean that I have changed, I am still the same person, I just realized that I do not have the strength to interact to people like I used to anymore. In fact I realized that in my 300level in uni when I started feeling constantly tired whenever I have friends over, and I just wanted to be alone.it was then I changed apartments and started keeping to myself. I am still a “bad girl” but yes I still deserve respect

When something terrible happens to a woman, we feel the need to show and highlight the fact that she was a “good’’ woman so it means she doesn’t deserve terrible things. Which will mean that if she wasn’t, she deserved it.

Take for example, Uwa. The girl that was brutally raped and killed in a church in Benin. People felt the need to add that she was a virgin, and she didn’t deserve that, which will mean that if she was perceived to be loose, it would be okay. Also the young woman, Olamide who was murdered by her fiancé, then people came out to put up lies about her, saying she did paternity fraud and therefore she deserved it. Which was a lie by the way but people didn’t care. As far as you’re not a “good woman” then it means you deserved whatever evil that happens to you. It’s pathetic and sad. We should just learn to respect women no matter who they are. One thing that baffles me is also the fact that this inhumane treatment aren’t extended to men. People always feel the need to find excuses for men and society often find it easier to forgive or excuse men of bad behavior than they do men.

There’s also a popular belief that prostitutes can never be raped which is false. And as a woman you can feel that the business and welfare of sex workers is none of your business but when it comes to it, it does. Nigerian men find slut shaming women and calling them ashawo or prostitute as the go-to insult when women do what they consider as not ‘’good-woman like’’ and when they do it, it won’t matter whether you are truly a prostitute, they can use it to incite a mob against you and it won’t really matter if they’re wrong or right. You could be in an argument with a cabman over change and he calls you an ashewo and before you know it everybody will park to insult you. Until all woman are free, no woman is truly free. Sex workers rate human too and we shouldn’t dehumanize them.

All women deserve respect. Irrespective of the way they dress, look, the kind of friends they keep, their religion, their social status, poor or rich, profession or anything at all. All women deserve respect. And yes RESPECT ALL WOMEN.

Thanks so much for reading. Let me know what you think of this in the comment section.