A MAN IS THE HEAD OF THE HOME AND THE OPINION OF A SCORNED MALE

DISCLAIMER: Read this with an open mind free of judgment and do disregard this if you cannot open your mind to new realities. Be rest assured that I will reply any foolish comment with profanities that you never knew exist.

I wanted to write about this a few weeks earlier when my anger was still fresh. I wanted to yell my opinion at everyone and call anyone who didn’t subscribe to my views a retard but, I started and realized that I wasn’t making any sense asides showing off my latest ability of yelling endless  profanities at people.

So, here I am again at a calmer and more rational attempt to air my views in the most respectable way I can which might come off as disrespect to you. Best believe that I do not care.

"A man is the head of the home" to me is a phrase used by men to couch their insecurities, validate societal expectations of masculinity and to also feel good about their fragile egos. This phrase is particularly used frequently in the country where I am writing from, Nigeria. This phrase is also mainly used as an excuse to treat women poorly and reign over them like a slave-master relationship as opposed to the essential need of unconditional love as the foundation of any romantic human relationship.

A lot of Nigerian men and women run to religion or Christianity which I am most familiar with, as a safe backup when it comes to issues like this but, I would like to dismiss it as bullshit and the most stinking shit coming from a bull’s arse. Most of y’all who like to use the Bible as a backup during arguments are some of the most self-centred and damaged people rotating the sun of our galaxy. You lot lie, cheat, steal , covet your neighbours and haul your Bibles into an abyss of plausible deniability, only to retrieve it back when it is time to give opinions on marriage, women and homosexuality. 

That’s a pitiful shame.

Addressing your opinion about the Bible continuously hinting that the man is the head of home and the male gender as superior, the Bible was written during a time when masculinity ruled the world so the stories could not have been better. However, most people will say but it’s the Bible! , everything still applies and I will tell you to separate your faith from reality first and walk through the middle where they both meet. The world has evolved and is still evolving past the times where women were viewed as objects, commodities or things that do not deserve to speak or have an opinion. I tell people that if the Bible was written in the 21^st Century, most of the stories would’ve been written differently so, drop your goddamn bias and start questioning things as how they apply to your life and most importantly, how they don’t.

Men and women are equal. 

As twisted as this may sound, it is the silently screaming truth that lies deep beneath each of our souls but is completely stifled by societal structures and insecurity that we choose not to rise above.

Equal first because they are both human beings and different because of distinct physical and emotional characteristics.

 Different doesn’t mean unequal.

Let’s take an example of an Apple and a Watermelon. Both are sharply different in taste and nutritional benefits but that doesn’t rob them of their status of being fruits. We cannot say that because a Watermelon is big enough to cause permanent amnesia when smashed onto someone’s head, it is superior to the apple which is smaller in size. It is the same as the male and female gender. Because “they” say one is stronger doesn’t make the other less of a human being or equal to the other.

Strength lies in the ability to overcome even the simplest of things and not who is able to lift a skyscraper and who is not. Childbirth and period pains are far worse than lifting a table in my own opinion. 

Marriages are/and should be a collaboration and not a relationship that struggles to define the head and the tail (or neck as people would like to argue). Marriage should be about making amicable decisions and compromise when necessary and not leaving a final decision in the hands of one party at the detriment of the other. This is most prevalent in Nigerian homes where the final decision lies with the man at the expense of the woman’s sanity. It is why our marriages are a façade, hanging on the rope of kids and letting go when there is nothing to grab anymore.

Most people would like to argue that every human endeavour needs a leader or someone who can steer the ship. I would like to tell you that this opinion is flawed. The most successful people on earth today had no leader but themselves; nobody to tell them what was right and what was wrong. They were their own leaders. This same analogy applies to romantic relationships because having a leader suffocates and suppresses. Having a leader means one person is putting more energy than the other which will create problems in the shadows that would surface when the sun is overhead at midday.

Love is equal. Love sees no superior but togetherness that will be required to raise children that will be kind human beings who will  stare their fears in the face and shove their middle fingers at it.

I encourage you, my fellow men especially to go against the norm. Go against what you know about a society that hands every form of entitlement to a gender because he has a penis.

Growing up, I once thought frying stew was the only way to make stew. I grew up hating the process because it was too time consuming for a lazy arse as me. I went to university and one day decided I wasn’t going to fry stew in my small kitchen that wasn’t in the wind direction and made my body slowly cook whilst I was cooking. I boiled it, it tasted the same and I switched methods to something that was less time consuming and would preserve my sanity.

It’s the same thing I want you to do.

Question societal norms and strive to treat any human being kindly regardless of gender. Love because in the end, that is all you have to give. Become a better person and pattern your life in a way that would keep you out of a mental hospital and as well be a be a ray of sunshine to whoever you encounter and not a 2 year old kid whining about gender entitlements and being a head. Teach your male kids that they are not special or more important than your female kids and that they are not born to rule over anyone asides themselves.

I know I will be dragged for my opinion by my fellow men who have called me “ballsless” and less of a man and sometimes a woman because of my unconventional ways. Do know that I will gladly go to the cross for my opinion and I will be having a nice marriage whilst you’ll be struggling to define your “headness” with your wife planning a divorce. 

God help you if you don’t have a pre-nup.