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Showing posts from May, 2021

World Menstrual Hygiene Day 2021

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  World Menstrual Hygiene Day is a day set aside to promote good menstrual hygiene and health for women. It focuses on breaking the silence, educating people on what menstruation is, and asking politicians, key decision-makers and well-meaning organizations need to take action about menstrual hygiene. For centuries, there has been a lack of education and so many persisting taboos surrounding menstruation. People feel like menstruation is something shameful, something we should not talk about. I remember one time a girl wanted to talk about menstruation and an older woman shushed her loudly.  “Don’t you talk about that in public,” she said.  Another one said, “When men are around, they shouldn’t hear you use that word.” Although they never said it out loud, their body language and facial expressions told us all we needed to know. Slowly, they made menstruation seem like something shameful. A crime the girl child and all of womanhood have committed. Consequently, many young girls grew up

International Day of the Boy Child 2021

 It is International Day of the Boy Child 2021. The International Day of the Boy Child is a day set aside to advocate for boys to be educated, groomed,  and mentored in order to have a truly gender-equal world. It is a day that focuses on the boy child. And reminds us that we should not neglect them.  This year’s theme is Guiding the Boy Child : positively impacting the world. It reminds us of how much impact we will make if our boys are guided properly from a young age. Over the years, it seemed like more people focused on training girls to be perfect while boys were left to trudge through life’s murky waters on their own. As a result, so many men had to learn a lot of things the hard way.  Many of them grew up broken and didn’t have anyone to turn to or ask questions. A lot went wrong as a result. These boys made lots of mistakes and took rash decisions. What if from a young age they’re guided properly? Think about how great that will be for them and for the society. We will have mor

Birthday Reflections 2021

 This year, I would like to self-reflect on how God’s goodness has been pivotal to the progress I have recorded in my brake-less advocacy journey. My advocacy quest entered a full drive in 2015, and three years later, after participating in MCW, I launched my blog, where I broach all subjects advocacy. My entire adult life has been riddled with gender-equality discussions, of course, but before those two historic mentions, I hadn’t gone full-on gender-equality advocate on the Internet, but I had engaged young individuals on the controversial topic now and then. Then, I was shy, reserved, and, of course, I was worried that people may look upon me with calumny and berate my choice of path in life. Heck, I wasn’t sure that airing my thoughts on the Internet would make a (lasting) difference. When I took the mantle of advocacy, at first, I wondered if anyone gave a listening ear. It felt weird showing up and speaking about women-centred issues and gender equality. That nearly killed my int

Men Picking Up The Gauntlet 7!!! – Ojobo Agbo

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 v- Mentorship for Teenage Boys. - Access to opportunities and skill development for young men. - Responsibility in the family, workplace, and society at large. - Men’s Role in raising the next generation of men.   <strong>5. What do you hope to achieve with The iDealMan Initiative</strong> We see a society where men's and boys' issues are taken as seriously as that of women and girls. A society where men and boys are fully developed and empowered in different areas of their lives. A society where men and young men have the requisite knowledge, skills, and resources to not just thrive but also mentor boys to become better men. We believe that through our interventions, programs, and projects, we can achieve this. <strong>6. What is your advice to other men who also want to venture into boy child advocacy but do not know how to? </strong> I know we live in a society that sees men as weak when they choose to embrace their vulnerability or when they take a

My Reservations about Choice Feminism

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 While the concept of choice is something I subscribe to, I have some reservations about the choice feminism. Choice feminism is simply a concept of feminism that upholds women’s right to choose. This idea states that a woman has the right to CHOOSE how she would live her life and we should respect that. People often bring this up when we ask questions about women’s choices that reflect misogyny. If you try to evaluate the CHOICES of these women, they play the respect their choice card. I have a few questions, however: What if those choices aren’t really choices per se? What if these choices are deeply rooted in patriarchal values and are coming from the societal constructs they have known all their lives? What if these choices are the only life they have known and they are only happy with it because they don’t realize that they can be more? Shouldn’t we able to question that? Let’s look at the housewife for example. Now, let me put it out there that I completely agree that a woman can