Last week, I overheard a woman pray for a baby girl and she concluded her deluge of prayers with ‘You will be great. You will be the wife of a president’. It struck me, and what struck me was the fact that here was a woman inadvertently placing a limit on the potential that the baby girl could reach. The highest this baby girl could be in life was the wife of her president? I mean, Mrs. Patience Jonathan isn’t doing too bad: she’s got her own Official First Lady Seal, right? (Not constitutional, but then, it’s Nigeria. Who cares?) On a serious note, the first thought that came into my head was ‘why can’t this baby girl be the President herself?’. I realized that I’ve rarely heard a female Nigerian child aspire to be the President of Nigeria, CEO, Inspector General of Police, etc: all roles of leadership which have been dominated by male figures. Unfortunately, such a mindset propagates from the highly sexist culture which ensures a dearth of true female role models who are successful without being married or more famous/successful than their male spouse.
In the woman’s statement was a form of discrimination that’s prevalent in Nigeria. Lacking an established word for it, I coined it as ‘wifeism’. Wifeism is the belief that a woman’s solely exists in life to please her husband at the detriment of her development. I’d also like to define it as discrimination on women based on marital status. Its psychological and economic significance has an interesting intertwining that makes its effects range from subtlety to outright suppressive.
On the psychological front, the effect on a woman is subtle, but decisively potent. Wifeism places a psychological ceiling on the mind. In a society where the greatness of a woman is solely measured by the greatness of the man she marries, such barriers exist. Subconscious barriers that attempt to limit women do so by emphasizing the false limits of their potentials based on gender. A study showed that when psychological barriers are clear, people perform worse than they would otherwise. Spencer, Steele, and Diane Quinn (1999) found that merely telling women that a math test does not show gender differences improved their test performance. The researchers gave a math test to men and women after telling half the women that the test had shown gender differences, and telling the rest that it found none. When test administrators told women that that tests showed no gender differences, the women performed equal to men. Those who were told the test showed gender differences did significantly worse than men, just like women who were told nothing about the test. And, by the way, the experiment was conducted with women who were top performers in math.
Apart from psychological limitations, wifeism has significant economic consequences. First, in the most extreme of cases where a woman is coerced into having a full time job as a housewife, the potential for financial instability abounds. As any Economist worth his/her salt can tell you, diversification of resources should be the goal of any country. It ensures that one does not ‘put all one’s eggs in one basket’. Likewise, dependence on one family member creates an inordinate amount of instability. And in the event of the death or lay off of the 
husband, the rest of the family suffers immensely. Second, wifeism limits the amount of disposable income in the family. Disposable income provides for the children’s clothes, education and healthcare. So limiting disposable income essentially limits the financial security and potential of such a family. Now multiply that by the numbers of such families in Nigeria and it’s clearly a huge hit to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Potential (GDP*). Third, the extreme case of wifeism contributes to the unemployment rate. In certain places in Nigeria, despite a woman’s academic or professional achievements, her professional life is over once she’s married. For women that are nonchalant, c’est la vie. For those that desire to keep working, this not only constrains them, it arbitrarily adds them to the unemployment figure. It’s why stats like this exist in Nigeria: 8 female Senators out of 109 Senators, 23 female Honorable members out of 360 Members. Appalling statistics. Fourth, it leads to the deliberate suppression of a woman’s professional potential. Single women who deserve promotions based on merit are passed due to an individual’s belief that they are not ‘responsible’ enough to handle a higher position. A woman can be immensely successful, but a ‘Miss’ at the front of her name disqualifies her from the respect she deserves. Yeah..because marriage is the sole indicator of success or criteria for respect in the life of a woman?
Now I’m not saying women in marriage should neglect their roles as wives and deem it as unimportant or that single women should sacrifice marriage for their profession. On the contrary, there should be an desire to see oneself as a wife and a professional (well, except one prefers to be a professional wife or a single professional). Why be great in one aspect when you can be great in both? Is this possible? Yes. I would know: my mom manages to be an amazing wife AND a renown public figure. In MY opinion, a woman’s potential to effectively manage a family and job surpasses that of a man.
Lastly, no one else can push for the progress of women harder than women themselves: it’s a simple case of personal incentives. And yes, there are paternalistic structures that hold women back and it’s hard to break down centuries of male dominance. However, when Nigerian women give up, the fight will certainly be over. So women, let’s destroy this culture of wifeism by not supporting repressive notions of marriage. And men, let’s support our women. Every time women are held back, we are collectively held back. I know for a certain that I’ll constantly be rooting for my future wife just like my Dad did for my Mom. 
by Chuba Ezeks | Published on Naijanomics on July 1, 2013
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Great article, though it was difficult for me to read it, the black background and barely visible letters made me squint my eyes a few times! That aside, I like your blog and think you’re doing a fabulous job!
🙂
You need to change the background from black to something else. It’s unreadable.
That was really timely. Thanks for writing this, Chika. Since moving to Nigeria from the US, my daughter has been complaining of sexism non-stop. It really troubles her to be perceived as having less potential than her male classmates. I am going to be more sensitive to how I handle this matter and try to counteract the messages she’s receiving.
wifeism starts from when a woman changes her surname to bear the name of her husband. it is a western thing adopted by most Africans without question. i’d like to see the day the so called feminist s will kick against this form of social and mental subjugation. one can hardly hear women criticising this practice. where is a woman’s identity if she cannot maintain her own surname like her male counterparts?
if a woman were to be married and divorced 3 times it means she has to bear the name of Mr. Tom, Dick and Harry in each marriage. how sad.