The man had said to her: “you smell nice!”Taiwo rebuked the candidate and later tweeted the following comment, deleted later, when all hell broke loose on her page.This tweet and a subsequent barrage of others from Taiwo produced over 50,000 comments on Twitter, immediately setting off what soon became visible as the Taiwo Hashtag.
As events continued to unfold, it seemed like the trolls had taken over the conversation, with someone commenting that Twitter’s “children of Wobe” had come out in full force! The two hashtags then led to another called #HRinNigeria, where users vented their spleen about the harshness of interviews, difficulties with securing jobs, and the arrogance of HR in Nigeria. These statements were not surprising given that Nigeria’s unemployment rate is currently 23.
These circumstances exist because of gender stereotyping, which drives the socialisation of the sexes, making males imbibe the agentic traits of dominance, competence, strength and toughness and women communal attributes of niceness, motherliness, warmth and kindness. Research has also shown how these socialisation practices are deeply ingrained into our psychosociological makeup, such that it is not uncommon to hear boys in various societies being derided for crying because they are not girls.
This causes the double bind, a situation where, to put it simply, women are constantly caught between being tough but also nice when they operate in a leadership role. Some accounts have revealed that it is hard for some women with a Western upbringing to manage both traits well, so they tend to lean towards either one of the two.
In Nigeria, and possibly other African contexts, the situation with the double bind and backlash is even more complex, with research showing that responses to women leaders is dichotomous, depending on whether the woman is operating either within the traditional ultra-misogynistic context, or within a less frequently mentioned egalitarian male setting.
Space will unfortunately not let me discuss the subjects of Western Feminism and African Feminism in detail. I can also not regrettably, talk about the concept of cultural hierarchies, especially, as it relates to certain ethnic groups like the Yoruba and Northern societies; or about the interaction of Western Feminism with the African setting. As for this, I would need to write another article.