Perhaps, we may regard this age as the ruffian’s age, the rogue’s age, the thug’s age, but certainly not the lady’s age. Good example: just look at our politicians. Can you imagine a good man surviving in their midst? Now then, are you surprised that our female politicians cannot afford to be ‘ladies’ in their midst either? They would not survive. So, our female politicians have learnt to dine with their male counterparts using long spoons. Just ask our former first lady; just look at the terribly loooong spoon she used to dine all the way from Abuja to Rivers State. Do you then wonder that we have been getting some teeeeeerribly funny results in that region?
They say it takes seven generations to make a lady; and I say it may take seven countries to make one. The reason is that this is the age of THE COOOOOL; the age when bad is good, mean is beautiful, ugly is handsome, wicked is admirable and the unpredictable attracts worse than honey does bees. In this age, ladies have become men of brawn, and gentlemen have given way to laughter. They are splitting their sides watching the women painfully swing all kinds of doors open with fake manly gusto.
Many people think that being a lady only means wearing ruffles, silks and diamonds. In truth, there are many ladies in AJEGUNLE and there are also many JANKARA women in IKOYI. Actually, it is not when one is dressed up to the nines that one can claim to be a lady. Clothes, they say, doth not a man make, or a woman. Most times, dressing up in the fineries only succeeds in making one look gaudy, untidy and a bad advertisement for the diamond cutter. Just ask the wife of one of our senators who recently celebrated her birthday in a dress that looked like a masquerade’s parade! But you and I know better. We know how to tell a lady apart, don’t we?
We know that a lady is someone who does everything in a calculated, unhurried way. Even when it is raining, a lady may hasten her footsteps, but she will not run giddy-gadding for shelter no matter how wet she may be. She will also not swear at the blasted weather. Her habits must be neat. Now, that’s a tough one. It means that a lady will not bend down to retrieve her keys like a fish seller laying down her fish-load from her head, her bottoms up. Rather, she will stoop, her knees bent, to retrieve her object from the gutter, no matter how dirty. She will not even walk in any which way, flinging legs and thighs around as if she is trying to determine how much they weigh. Indeed, to be a lady, one is encouraged to walk as if the entire body is in a POP cast, like a broken leg or arm.
More importantly, a lady watches what she says. Now, there you have us all Nigerian women. I am told that there are certain words that must not ensue from a lady’s mouth; for example, words heavily laden with abuses, insults, curses, and such shrew-like epithets are not ladylike. I think Nigerian husbands wrote that rule, but never mind, the important thing is that her speech, to the weather and every other unruly element, must always be pleasing. Anger at erring husbands and children must be expressed in an inoffensive way, not with pestle and mortar, but with well-chosen words such as ‘Oh, but you are a funny one, are you not?’ to someone who has stolen a goat; and ‘Oh my, what a lovely rascal you are to be sure’ to someone who has stolen someone else’s house. And to someone who has embezzled billions of Naira, a lady would rather say, ‘Consider yourself slapped!’
When I ponder on why it is that men no longer want to do things for women – you know, like opening doors, drawing out chairs, giving up their seats for them, waiting attentively on the words dropping out of their sagacious mouths, making sure women eat first before the men – I find it is because the women have sold themselves out to the enemy. No, no, the enemy is not the group called men; the enemy is the weakness in women that makes them succumb to the rush of the moment and the rush for the gold of the workplace, which has sometimes been erroneously interpreted as self-realisation. In the process, self-assertion has taken the centre stage and squeezed out the very soul of politeness women are known for.
Worse, in this age of nuclear technology, the preoccupation of most people is directed more at the nuclear bombs they are sitting on and the nuke-heads pointing at their throats. That leaves issues such as good comportment and social manners scraping the forgotten bottom of the barrel of important items to worry about. To cap everything else, I find that there is a deep, deep level of ignorance which is most astounding. ‘Lady?’, my respondents shot back at me when I vouchsafed to ask some women for their opinions on the matter. ‘Wetin be lady? Abeg comot jo; na lady we go chop?’ In this age, I say, the stomach rules, ok.
Now, in many homes, the man eats his fill of the dinner first before the woman, if she is lucky to get any. Perhaps, that accounts for why women no longer care about themselves when they are outside the home, e.g. say in traffic. Oh my, have you seen the way women drive cars these days? It is enough to make Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti turn in her grave. I tell you, if she had driven that way when she became Nigeria’s first female-driver, there would have been a parliamentary move against female-drivers then and we would today be in the same boat as women in one Arab country where they are not allowed to drive, and from what I see now, I can’t blame them much. These days, its women who overtake with all kinds of swoosh from any direction, like the Arabian genie coming in and going out of a bottle.
Someone commented the other day that Nigerian women carry themselves generally with the most careless abandon in their talk, shape and gait. I agreed and decided to watch myself from then on. However, it was hard going not to fling abuses at taxi-drivers and Okada riders who cut into traffic without any care, children who crossed the roads without checking first, chickens that scurried to and fro without any care. It was tough not to pounce on my food like a famished tiger after a hard day’s work. It was tougher to remember to walk or drive like a human being when I found I was late for work.
It pains me each time I see women straddling Okada with all their dignity packed up with their skirts, or when I watch their waistlines jiggling up and down as the road contours. They do not ride Okada astride in skirts, showing their all to the backs of the riders.
Clearly, the women in this country need to get their ladylike acts back together. There are things ladies just do not do; they do not let money, position or politics make them lose their sense of propriety. More importantly, they must retain a good temper and be trustworthy. And they must guard the sanctity of whatever has been entrusted to them (children, husband, power, position or wealth) with every sense of responsibility for the sake of everyone. Above all, they must be careful never to fight in public or drive those around them crazy with their nonsenses.
