Chrisland: Social Media Reactions On Sex Tape Exposes Gender Bias In Nigeria – Lawyer

Pelumi Olalengbesi Esq has faulted the widespread social media reaction that trailed a leaked sex tape involving students of Chrisland school, Lagos, citing the predominant gender biases decipherable from the reactions.

The lawyer stated that the way individuals defended their gender without any deep consideration of the issues revealed “several gender-based biases and prejudices that have long taken the form of a cultural norm in Nigeria.”

According to Pelumi, people generally think that rape is an act initiated by the male folk while the female is at the receiving end.

He wrote on his Facebook page: “Early information about the incident revolved around claims of a school-girl aged 13 who was allegedly raped by a boy or group of boys while on a school trip to Dubai. Without verification of the material details of the allegation, social media was swirling with ‘hot takes’ and condemnation that righteously called on better parenting of the boy-child, effectively pining guilt on a gender most easily identified with rape or sexual harassment- on the singular testimony of the alleged victim.

“That outrage, however, lasted for just a night because by morning, with the public release of the shameful video of the sad event, it became apparent that the alleged victim was in fact a willing and active participant in the immorality that was kindling the morality woods of Nigeria. The disdain and opprobrium shifted gender.

“This piece is however not about that pitiful video which should have never seen the light of day and which further damns the children caught in the throes of internalized moral decadence to a lifetime of shame and ostracization, it is rather about the gender-based biases that have fed numerous opinions on the matter.

“A young man with a harem of women is an envy of a great many but a young woman with an equal number of partners would be termed an ashawo. In like manner, our society more readily believes that a man rapes a woman than it would that a woman raped a man.

“It is indubitable that we live in a society that prejudges actions along spurious emotive, biological criteria with very little room for introspection.

“The girl is indecent, why not the boy is indecent or both? She has sexual experience, why not he has sexual experience or both? She needs therapy, why not he needs therapy or both? Her parents are to be blamed, but what about the parent of the boy?! Even with the parents of the girl receiving public flak, the mother of the girl was at the brunt of most of the abuses and condemnations that followed. Unintended perhaps, but a clear case of associating parental failure with mothers to the exclusion of fathers who in fact have equal roles in a child’s upbringing.”

Pelumi further stated that until Nigerians balance “narratives along the lines of the action itself and not the gender involved, our prejudices and biases will continue to undermine efforts at curbing societal rot.”