The Role of the Woman in The Home Building

This post is not inspired by a recent political drama that attracted a lot of positive and negative reactions. But a response to Elizabeth Owei’s questions on the part of sex roles and gender roles in my previous article titled ” the kitchen and the other room; the mystery of housing“. I hope that not just Elizabeth Owei, but everyone finds this interesting.

Sex roles and gender roles on its own is a very broad topic in feminism. That is why I decided to skip the topic in my previous write up. Elizabeth, Sex roles is about the biological makeup of an individual. A woman has breast and she can breastfeed. And a man has a reproductive organ, which differs from that of a woman. A woman can get pregnant and go into the labour room. A man can’t.

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On the other hand, gender roles are behaviors considered masculine or feminine. And they are culturally determined. A gender role is a set of societal norms dictating the types of behaviors which are generally considered acceptable, appropriate, or desirable for people based on their actual or perceived sex or sexuality. Gender roles are usually centered on conceptions of femininity and masculinity, although there are exceptions and variations. The specifics regarding these gendered expectations may vary substantially among cultures, while other characteristics may be common throughout a range of cultures. This means that gender roles defined responsibilities of based sex based on psychology prevailing in an environment. In Nigeria for example, we believe that a man should not wash plates, cook or clean the house that it is a woman’s job.

The term gender role was first coined by John Money in 1955, during the course of his study of intersex individuals, to describe the manners in which these individuals expressed their status as a male or female.

Back the previous topic, “the phrase, the kitchen and the other room” may mean a bit of pre-conceived sex roles and gender roles in Africa. Once again, I don’t want to dwell on that. We have the following theories of gender with different forerunners; biological theory(which can be termed sex roles); psychological theory (gender roles); materialist theory; cultural theory and religious theory.

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Truth be told, a woman has certain responsibilities in the home, and without a woman, this may not be easily achieved. This may be due to the emotional makeup of the woman. I don’t mean that a man cannot do this as well, but a woman does it better. So let’s look at some of these things.

There is a saying, ‘a woman owns the house’ and I would say, ‘to buy or sell a property you need to get on the woman’s good side’. Why is that? Women are the makers of the home, they are known for their picky and specific taste as they love designs and follow trends. Their sensitive sense of design flows in a pattern which helps them get the best way to arrange their home, and we can say that apart from food, a man loves a woman with a good sense of arrangement.

A woman is very conscious of every detail in her home; from the living room, dining room, to the restroom or kitchen; where she performs her magic of cooking after a long day of being a businesswoman. A place she can express her hand skills and have her family praise her for every delicious delicacy. To the final and most important room, the bedroom where she rests her head and gets this quality private time with her man, in that same room she keeps her shrine, all her collections of numerous designers, countless numbers of attires, bags, shoes, scarfs, hair, makeup, jewelries for different occasions. A woman adores and admires a lot, which helps her build various designs into a pattern.

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This makes her as complicated as her taste; don’t ever try to predict her taste cos you might end up disappointing. You ask nicely and she tells you her specifications on the kind of property (home) she loves her family to live in. You get her something within her specifics and you are in good business.

To all men, anytime you are ready to get an apartment or relocate, consult a woman. You can also inspect your preferred property on PropertyPro.ng  with a woman by your side. I am not trying to be subjective. Men are also wonderful creatures and they complement the women. A society can never be complete without men, vice versa.

Credit: Aderinsola Jolaosho and Temitope Ayodele