Imagine waking up for several years feeling disoriented and not yourself. You really cannot place your finger on what is wrong with you, but you have memory lapses, forget entire days and events, sometimes feel as if you are in a trance and lose weight without trying to. You mention it to your husband of 40+ years who is solicitous and urges you to see the doctor and even goes there with you, but no one seems to figure out what is wrong with you and yet the feeling persists that all is not well.
Finally, you begin to think it must be the onset of Alzheimer’s, dementia or brain seizures and start to prepare for a life when you may not remember your loved ones or world. Then one day, you get a call from the police station and your world falls apart. There was nothing wrong with you except that your husband of 50 years with whom you thought you had a close relationship, had betrayed you in the most horrifying way.
You learn that over a period of 10 years, in which he administered strong tranquilizers to you through food and drink, he raped you as you slept. But he didn’t stop at that, he invited several men (over 72 of them between the ages of 22-70) to your home and watched them sleep with you under strict conditions (they could not smoke or wear perfumes, some of them waiting outside your home for some time for the drugs to take effect), recorded the assault and yet still pretended that he did not know what was going on with you. Then it all made sense, the sexually transmitted diseases you had contracted and the torture of living everyday wondering what was wrong with you because your subconscious knew that you were being violated.
Incredible story you may say, straight out of the horror books and surely fiction and I would not blame you if you think so, but it is the true-life story of Gisele Pelicot whose husband Dominique is presently facing trial with 50 other men on rape charges. Gisele only became aware of the crimes against her when Dominique was caught taking pictures of women’s crotches in a supermarket and an investigation by police led to the pictures and videos spanning over 10 years and meticulously documented and labeled “abuses” on his phone.
My skin cringed reading this story, which is still unfolding, and my first thoughts are – how can a man who has been married to a woman for a whole 50 years treat her like” a rag doll and garbage bag” in Gisele’s words? Why do some men hate women so much that they treat them in such a manner? You may say that this case is rather extreme and I agree, but in my line of work I have heard and even know men who have poisoned their spouses, locked them up in the house so they cannot go out, seize property or cars they use when offended by their wives because they bought them, control who they can or cannot see (even their family members), beat them and even pimp them out to other men.
There are several reasons why men think they own women
* The thinking that a woman is not a man’s equal: Outlandish religious beliefs taken to the extreme by some men because of their fears of being subjugated by women and their despair and anger at the strides taken by the feminists reinforce this thinking. I joined a WhatsApp group of members of my Christian fellowship whilst in university and the views of two of the men on women, patriarchy and marriage is to say the very least-disturbing. One of them who I do not respond to anymore actually believes that women are less superior to men and uses Bible passages to support his misogyny. He floods our chat group with videos of both men and women using Bible passages to say a woman is not equal to a man based solely on her gender and that a married woman exists solely for the pleasure and dominion of her husband. The other man is less strident in his hatred of women but also believes “that a father raising his daughter to be an independent woman is setting her up to be a misfit who cannot be submissive in marriage”.
Yes!!! These are educated men in their 50s with families having such retrogressive ideas.
* Many cultures around the world, including Western societies, have long perpetuated the idea that men have a certain degree of ownership over women, particularly within the bounds of marriage. Historically and even on religious grounds, marriage was, and is still viewed as a transfer of a woman’s autonomy from her father to her husband, a concept that suggests women are property rather than autonomous individuals. This is reflected in archaic laws where women were treated as dependents and men’s rights to control women were codified. Even though those laws have changed, some men continue to internalise these outdated beliefs, believing they are entitled to exert control over women’s bodies after all, her body is her husband’s forgetting that the statement is the same for both genders. In this context, rape and other forms of sexual violence are not merely acts of aggression or desire, but also acts of domination and ownership.
* Media and Cultural Representation: Media often perpetuates stereotypes that normalise male entitlement and aggression. Movies, music, advertisements and even literature often glorify men who persistently pursue women, even against their will, or depict sexual conquest as a measure of masculinity. These messages can unconsciously inform behaviours and attitudes, making it seem acceptable for men to feel entitled to women’s bodies. Men are often raised with the idea that their desires and needs come first, while women are conditioned to accommodate and serve the men.
* Legal and Institutional Failures: Even in countries with strong legal frameworks, the implementation of laws protecting women’s rights is often inadequate. Many women who report abuse face skepticism, victim-blaming, or indifference from authorities, which discourages others from speaking out. This lack of accountability can reinforce male entitlement, as perpetrators feel confident that they will not face consequences. As I finish this article, the death of Ugandan Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei who was set ablaze by her boyfriend hit the news bringing again to the forefront, the plight of women at the hands of men who claim to love them.
It is time that men all over the world begin to stand up and confront the insecurities that make them think they need to own, harm, or control a woman, a human being, made in the same image of God as they are. It is time that men that do not support misogyny stop enabling the men that do, like most of the men in my WhatsApp group who read the two men’s posts and ignore them without telling them how wrong they are. I find it remarkably interesting and very telling that of the 30 people on my WhatsApp group with an equal number of male and female, only one man confronts the ideology of these two men and speaks against it. The other men read and ignore. The women do not speak up at all, the only one that did so, left the group in anger.
Women are being radicalised because of incidents like this and sometimes it is exceedingly difficult not to support the extremists as women have no choice than to stand up for ourselves since the reasonable men would rather stand aside mouthing “not all men”
I have repeatedly told the men on my WhatsApp group that although their posts are downright insulting, degrading and disrespectful, I would not leave the group in order that I may always counter their mad submissions. It is my own little way of using all avenues in which I can speak to men to highlight the consequences of male entitlement, misogyny, patriarchy and advocate for equality.
I salute Gisele Pelicot who waived her right to a private trial not minding the revelations of intimate and private details of her life because she wanted to represent women in her shoes even though her world has in her own words, “fallen apart”, her three children who have stood firmly by their mother, one even authored a book And I stopped calling you Daddy .
There is a reason I advocate sharing our personal stories and it’s so that we can educate others, dismantle harmful stereotypes and promote a culture of respect and consent for all genders.
Today, sit down that boy or man with you and tell him that a man does not, cannot possibly own a woman.
AISIDA is a columnist with this is Lagos online
