BEYOND THE BACKLASH: UNPACKING THE STIGMA AGAINST SUCCESSFUL NIGERIAN WOMEN

“What does she do?”; “We all know what she did to get that money”; “Sponsored by one old man”– are the common insidious comments made by Nigerian men when women speak or post about their successes. Statements that have eaten so deep into the mentality of Nigerian men causing deep societal decay.

A mentality so deeply ingrained,it would take the raising of a new generation of men to get rid of the decay. Yet, how is that even possible when majority of men in this generation already possess this “very decayed” mentality? As the Nigerian saying goes “lion nor de born goat”– a child raised with a decayed mindset will inevitably grow up with that same worldview deeply ingrained. Think of a child like an empty bucket; whatever you pour inside that bucket is what it would hold until that bucket is kicked over and its contents spill out.

Young boys, more than anything, observe and internalize the attitudes of the male figures in their lives. The misogynistic comments they encounter online, the casual disrespect they witness in how men treat and speak about women, all gradually seep into their minds, often without conscious effort. What starts as demeaning comments about girls, sometimes passed off as harmless "cruise" or “banter”, slowly but surely becomes their accepted day-to-day reality and their own way of relating.

This isn't merely an observation; it's a lived, frustrating reality for countless Nigerian women. I recall a day I simply took a motorcycle to the market. Upon seeing my phone, the cyclist immediately declared me "quite rich," convinced my device was worth more than his bike, which he claimed to have bought years ago. Without provocation, he then launched into a rant about how "we females don't do hard work, always getting money from men and spending wastefully," directly insinuating I was using my body to earn a living. When I calmly refuted him, stating I was a lawyer, his deeply ingrained prejudice was so profound he simply dismissed my profession, uttering, "God knows what work everyone is doing," and openly scoffed at the idea of me being a lawyer. My truth was irrelevant in the face of his pre-conceived notions.

This mentality extends beyond individual encounters, manifesting brutally in the digital space. We see men routinely use "cruise" or “banter” to destroy the integrity of women and insult them. A recent, particularly egregious incident involved a guy who, to gain online traction, fabricated messages claiming his undergraduate girlfriend, whom he supposedly sponsored, had lied on a show about never having had a boyfriend. The girl endured days of relentless insults and public shaming, with men seizing the opportunity to broadly demean women. It was only days later that the perpetrator issued an apology, admitting it was all a cruel joke, a mere "cruise" and just like that it was swept under the rug, those who rallied out insults against women were no where to be found, they laughed it off as cruise and that was the end. Such incidents show how readily men leverage any perceived vulnerability to attack women's character.

The consequences of this pervasive suspicion by men are dire. When women express their opinions in comment sections or any social media platform, they are often met not with intelligent discourse, but with vicious personal attacks. They are swiftly labeled "prostitutes," "OS," "ashawo," and other deeply offensive names. This relentless bombardment has gotten so bad that many women have become desensitized, they no longer even flinch when insulted with those words. It is profoundly depressing, living in a society where women feel they cannot air an opinion without a man asserting they have "nothing upstairs except how to spread their legs."

And here lies the agonizing hypocrisy. Yes, there are women who, for various complex reasons know to them, do sell their bodies for money. But to whom do they sell it? To men. So why are the very men who constitute the demand side of this equation so bold as to come out and publicly demean the ones selling? Demand, as in any market, is what increases supply. If they were to cease demanding, there would be no supply. Why then do these men consider themselves the righteous ones, while simultaneously casting the women they engage with as deserving of death and utter disrespect? The blame, and the solution, cannot lie solely with one half of this transactional equation. It’s time for Nigerian men to look inwards and dismantle the prejudice that blinds them to genuine female success and perpetuates a cycle of damaging double standards.