You sure have seen men doing wonders with women’s hair in beauty shops. Well, women, too, are pushing men aside in jobs once thought to be too demanding for the ‘weaker sex’.
With remarkable ease, women are handling saws, splitting wood and proceeding to give you some of the best furniture you have ever seen.
They are equally sporting the apron, but not to cook, just to keep them neat and tidy as they butcher and sell meat for a living.
But just as men are also dressing hair and loving it, so are they cooking, baking and nursing patients back to life.
Call it the mutual job-swap.
In the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja there is a gradual change in the time-worn conception that some occupations are reserved for a particular gender.
In Kubwa, the most populated of the satellite towns in the FCT, male hairdressers are the centre of attraction for women who crave fashionable hairstyles. One of the hairdressers, Newton Ogbonna, said his passion for beauty attracted him to the occupation.
His words: “I started this business because I have a passion for beauty and this has made the job very easy for me. I believe that before one does anything, one must have a passion for it. Once one builds the passion for what one does, one can succeed in it irrespective of one’s gender.”
Besides, there is a whole lot of difference between the ways some of the men in the beauty world handle some aspects of the business. These include pedicure and manicure. There is no basis for comparison with that of the opposite sex. Findings from our correspondent in Kubwa Village Market tend to support this view.
In a chat with some of Ogbonna’s customers, Abuja Review gathered that this male hairdresser thrives on the job not only because of his awesome skills but also because of the special fondness most ladies have for men attending to their beauty routine.
This, they explained, accounted for Ogbonna’s range of services which, among others, include hairdressing to fixing of eye-lashes, artificial nails and exotic make-up.
On the other hand, ambitious female artisans now try their hands in carpentry, mechanic and trades that were seen as “men’s jobs” in those days.
One outstanding example is a female furniture maker, Nneka Mbaegbu, who plies her trade at Deidei Junction in Abuja. Her story into the male-dominated job is also interesting even as it is rewarding.
In an encounter with Abuja Review, Nneka said: “I started carpentry work when life became unbearable for me after the collapse of my other businesses. Our correspondent gathered that she decided to live on the job because her tutor vowed not to let her practice the business.
The alluring pieces of furniture that she constructed were office chairs and tables, cabinets, household furniture and security wooden doors.
However, Nneka sought government intervention to relocate her workshop and showroom in a permanent site since the FCT Development Control has evicted her from her former workshop.
The job, according to her, is however taking a toll on her since she gets exhausted after operating planning woods manually.
She said: “I get exhausted most times after the day’s business because I lack machines to process the woods. Everything I do here is manual.”
Ladies have also taken to tricycle ridding, another hitherto masculine occupation. Keke NAPEP, as commuters fondly call the automobile, is more a ride for fun for passengers who deliberately wait for the female-operated Keke NAPEP to arrive, even while those operated by their male counterparts remain idle clamouring for passengers at Deidei Junction.
In Kagini, there is also another business of such. Maria Boniface, another woman making brisk business in a male-dominate business, is setting a mark in meat butchering. Her business stand is also a centre of attraction to her customers who said they also go to Madalla Market to patronise other female meat butchers.
