BROTHER, SPEAK UP

One of my male colleagues ehn...

A few days, someone attacked his work and his come-back was weak. I sincerely believed he had done a shoddy job. I had to go and investigate because it kind of impacts on my own work.

I checked and discovered that he had done a fairly decent job though there is some room for improvement. I told him yesterday that he needs to speak up and lean in and whatever else they usually tell us women.

Today, the matter came up at a meeting and he started to falter as he was being attacked again. So, I hijacked the discussion and firmly told the guys that had entered attack mode that I had checked the work and it wasn't so terrible.

Of course they couldn't attack me the way they had been attacking the guy first because I am a lady and secondly because they KNOW that the matter will not end quickly. I can drag a matter, if I feel strongly enough, for years... 😂😂😂😂

Eventually, they backed down and moved on to another topic. After the meeting, I went to apologize to the owner of the fight for taking over. He started preaching to me about how he likes to let his work speak for him. I tried hard not to roll my eyes, lol.

One thing that pains me is how some guys will be forming "gentleman" and will allow people that I have no decent name for walk over them. Yesterday, I read on Aishatu's wall about a guy who was given a 4 page list (and in fact, there was also a cost of preparing the list sef) as 'bride price'. Most people were bashing the bride price issue. My comment was for the guy to either find a cheaper bride or have a court wedding (statutory marriage).

Personally, I have no qualms with bride price. I just prefer statutory marriage to customary marriage because the rights of both husband and wife are properly protected with the statutory marriage.  I'll rather make customary marriage go extinct or be forced to be reformed by advocating for statutory marriage than to try to advocate for the abolishment of the bride price.

There was a comment on that post that came to mind as I reflected about my colleague today. It's about men who, for reasons best known to them, would rather be silent and allow unreasonable people walk over them in a bid to prove that they are gentlemen. My brother, don't let unreasonable people bully you o. You don't need to resort to violence but you need to be firm. There are healthy ways of defining boundaries.

#GenderParity