Gender Inequality is visible almost everywhere in the Nigerian ecosystem. Especially in the entertainment workspace. However, a lot of employers and contractors tend to do the needful by ensuring their workspace is inclusive for all genders and a lot of us see it, and we wholeheartedly approve. However, our attention was drawn to a Twitter post made by Pulse Tv where they put up a poll asking the entirety of Nigerian Twitter fingers to suggest a female co-host for the upcoming Big Brother Naija 2021 of which auditions have already started. And Nancy Isime’s name repeatedly popped up over and over again. This poll recently blew up and opened up a conundrum of opinions and thoughts on the role the gender card plays in employment opportunities. Whether or not it’s as big a deal as people say it is and whether or not people should be wary of it.
Nigerians on Twitter expressed themselves and shared their thoughts in the way only Nigerians who are aware of the freedom they hold in this time and era. Some of them had the opinion that women were only pretending to want Nancy Isime to have a prominent role because they want Ebuka’s job taken away from him. After all, he’s a man and not because they genuinely support Nancy Isime.
Whether or not this assumption has an iota of truth in it, it is not the point. The point is the timing. Why now? Why do Nigerian men and the pick-me breed of Nigerian women with internalized misogyny, feel the need to express themselves and make such snide and somewhat baseless comments at a time when there is an obvious battle against patriarchy?
It begs the question, whether or not women rallying around and supporting each other is so threatening to the patriarchy FC that they feel the need to employ the divide and conquer strategy as a tactic to change the trajectory of the ongoing conversation.
Some might argue that the reason for the divide and conquer strategy and the shift in conversation is because women rallying around and supporting each other is much more important than women just rallying around—probably because of the common saying that women are the problem of other women. Not society nor men. This is at the very least ignorant because society is not just inherently structured to pit women against each other for literally everything, but society is run by people and thanks to the more popular saying ‘it’s a man’s world’, we can already deduce who pits women against other women and won’t be ‘man’ enough to take responsibility for it.
So why then do Nigerians feel like this is a gender card women are playing, some even went as far as telling women to have better priorities and do something better with their time and I for one wonder why.
This is because, thinking objectively, you’d realize that a poll was put up on Twitter, and suggestions for female co-hosts were encouraged as that was the entire point of the poll. Why then did Nigerians choose to showcase the uncanny trait of selective reading and selective memory by conveniently omitting that part and gaslighting women for following instructions and recommending an equally qualified woman to carry out the task she is good for. It doesn’t even seem like a sensible thing to do but then again, as people imbued with wisdom, it isn’t our concern to try to understand what makes others tick.
And so, regardless of what Twitter fingers choose to say or not say, Nancy Isime is an astute and hardworking individual who has always done her part in delivering her roles to the best of her ability both as an actress and as a Tv Presenter. So she certainly deserves to serve as the co-host of the 2021 edition of the Big Brother Naija reality Tv Show. If they choose to include a female co-host or switch up from the norm and use a woman instead.