Patriarchy FC | Sexist jokes about women is another display of ignorance

Patriarchy

Patriarchy was not something men were even supposed to believe in, let alone dilate upon with relish. But, the word has grown into common parlance and popular culture. Once you tune into it, you become lost in it. It has become that one unexpected word that comes up from almost anywhere anytime.

It has burst its way out of the ‘almost-lost’ concepts to greet a moment when women need to urgently name what exactly they are up against. And, in some instances, many people question the existence of patriarchy, considering significant progress made in gender equality over the past century, arguing that sexism is individual and isolated, rather than evidence of a persistent pattern of inequality.

On another side, there are those who regard patriarchy as one other extreme enabled by feminists determined to hunt down men who are guilty of nothing but past behaviours once considered acceptable.

But for those who lack basic understanding of the forward motion of human progress, or the ones born ‘yesterday’ to even understand, patriarchy is the most right word to explain the continued existence of ubiquitous, seemingly indestructible inequality.

And when you take a stroll through Twitter Nigeria, you see supposedly informed Nigerians making sexist jokes, forgetting that there implications to this.

The perpetrators will tell you ‘it’s all banter’, ‘we don’t mean any of that’. But, these jokes suggest depictions of misogyny that influence pop culture. These jokes hyperactivate sexual objectification of women, devaluation of their personal and professional abilities, and support of violence against women. Implications of such humour can never be underemphasised.

Patriarchy FC should actually never be an item for banter, but here we are:

That is where today’s conversation started and the tweet opened the conversation for two popular groups on social media – ‘The feminist coven and the Patriarchy FC’.

To be candid, Nigeria, like many other countries of the world, has continued to display outright ignorance on the reality of inequality. And, women have promoted trends like #MenAreScum to attempt enlightenment, but may have gone about it the wrong way and ended up lighting up the polity, and are sometimes given the misandrist tag.

 

Indeed, humour is a strong weapon in developing interpersonal and intergroup relationship (and conflict and competition). Over the centuries, men have used humour and jokes to create and perpetuate patriarchal ideals, relationships, and structures. Today, feminists and other proponents of gender equality use humour to deconstruct patriarchal ideologies and sexist stereotypes.

But Patriarchy FC no be the way.

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