As Nigerians fight over cooking roles, Obama pushes against gender roles

With social media platforms in Nigeria abuzz with conversations on cooking. cleaning and the general role of women in the society, Barack Obama, America’s first black president, has proudly identified with feminism.

According to daily independent, Obama published an essay in a young women’s magazine describing the most important women in his life as women.

He challenged gender stereotypes and roles that put women at a subservient position -not to be heard, to do more chores at home and wait up on her spouse who should automatically be the economically advantaged one.

“The most important people in my life have always been women,” he said in the essay

“We need to keep changing the attitude that raises our girls to be demure and our boys to be assertive, that criticises our daughters for speaking out and our sons for shedding a tear.”

Obama advocated change in the attitude that punishes women for their sexuality and rewards men.

He hailed the Hillary’s Clinton’s emergence as the Democratic presidential nominee.

“Two hundred and forty years after our nation’s founding, and almost a century after women finally won the right to vote, for the first time ever, a woman is a major political party’s presidential nominee,” he said.

Obama said America has made progress in equality with more people pushing back “against dated assumptions about gender roles”.

“I want all of our daughters and sons to see that this, too, is their inheritance. I want them to know that it’s never been just about the Benjamins; it’s about the Tubmans too. And I want them to help do their part to ensure that America is a place where every single child can make of her life what she will,” he added.

“That’s what twenty-first century feminism is about: the idea that when everybody is equal, we are all more free.”