That is NOT the problem. The problem is, fellow girls would see the campaign poster or flyer of the sole female contender and after seeing the post she was gunning for, would make up their minds right there and then not to vote for her.
They believed women aren't supposed to aim for presidential positions because well, they are women. If the girl had gone for the post of vice-president they would have backed her up but president seemed a little over ambitious.
Now the startling part of this is not that there is gender-based bias in a Nigerian high institution. It is that the bias is fueled by her fellow women. Her peers. The young girl gunning for the post of SUG president has unofficially lost before the race even started because her fellow women decided that by the virtue of her lacking a p£*nis, she was not a worthy contender.
My sister has been pressurising me to make a post about this days ago and I've been dragging my feet because it seemed like a useless venture. She is not on Facebook. The girls with such myopic mindset are not my Facebook friends so I did not see the need to make another "equality" post.
We have enough of them already and the intended demographic may not even get to read it. What I did though, was to take that opportunity to give her a crash course on feminism and gender equality. Tell her that feminism is 50-50 not 60-40 or 49-51.
Tell her that that lady should be judged by what she has to offer, her experience, capabilities and capacity, and not by the presence or absence of the Y chromosome. If she falls short, then don't vote for her.
Differentiate between feminism and misandry. Align feminism with our Christian belief and tell her to spread the word. So as beautiful as online movements are, they should be done offline too. Women are the gate keepers of patriachy. We can close that gate if we want to. Lord knows we have left it open for far too long.
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