Ita-Giwa’s Flawed Perspective on Sexual Harassment
By Abdul Mahmud
The ignorance which some front row members of our elites’ class exhibit in public discourse has always been a source of worry to those who are concerned about the future of our country and its citizens. No nation aspiring to bypass the slow grind of traditional development can entrust its future to an elite class that neither reads nor engages with the intellectual currents shaping global progress. A country’s advancement is inseparable from the ideas that inform its policies, institutions, and innovations. Yet, Nigeria’s elite has consistently demonstrated an alarming indifference to knowledge and its production, choosing instead to venerate the very forces that hinder growth, stifle creativity, and entrench stagnation. An elite class that disdains intellectual engagement and stays disconnected from the evolving discourse of development is not merely failing in its duty – it is actively sabotaging the nation’s future. In countries that have successfully transformed their economic and political landscapes, the role of a knowledge-driven elite has been undeniable. From the Meiji Restoration in Japan to the economic revolutions of Singapore and South Korea, history is replete with examples of elites’ classes whose members embraced rigorous study, strategic thinking, and a commitment to innovation. Nigeria’s case, however, presents a stark contrast.
That stark contrast is even made starker by the likes of former Senator Florence Ita-Giwa who, in her recent appearance on the Morning Show of Arise TV, asserted: “By the time you have contested election and advanced to the senate as a woman, you have passed the stage of being sexually harassed”. This unfortunate gaffe, which reveals a troubling misunderstanding of the intersection between gender, power, and systemic sexual harassment, not only dismisses the precariousness of sexual discrimination and minimises the pervasiveness of sexual harassment; but also wrongly implies that power serves as a protective shield against gender-based violence. I wish the Bakassi Senator understood the issues; but, unfortunately, her assertions didn’t appear she did.
Sexual harassment is not a function of women’s political status but rather a reflection of the patriarchal structures that are buried deep into all levels of power. The dynamics of power are not neutral, to the extent that they become self-liberating. On the contrary, they are deeply gendered, persistent and pervasive that they make women’s lives precarious. A woman’s achievements are of no moment in the face of systemic oppression. One exact point that explodes the lie in Ita-Giwa’s assertion is presented by scholarly research and real-life experiences – all of which contradict the assumption that political power insulates women from harassment. Harassment is a systemic issue, not merely a problem confined to women in subordinate positions. It persists across all levels of professional and political life, often taking more harmful forms as women climb the ladder.
The eminent gender scholar, Jude Butler has consistently illustrated the fact that sexual harassment is not merely about desire but about domination and control. Even in politics, where women may have some levels of influence, they still remain vulnerable to coercion, threats, and gendered forms of humiliation. The recent humiliation of the former Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Mrs Mojisola Merandah, is an example. Women in positions of authority often face intimidation and harassment from male colleagues seeking to reassert dominance. Power does not necessarily exempt women from harassment – it can sometimes make them targets of more sophisticated forms of abuse, including character assassination- as the Deputy Chief Whip, Senator Onyekachi Nwaebonyi, has been doing in the past few days .
In fact, the late French scholar, Simone de Beauvoir, in her seminal work, The Second Sex, provides greater clarity to how women’s achievements do not exclude them from patriarchal scrutiny. A woman in the Senate may have overcome significant barriers, but this does not mean she is beyond the reach of harassment. She argues that women in male-dominated spaces are often viewed as intruders, and as a result, they may face heightened aggression, including harassment aimed at reinforcing male superiority. The notion that a woman outgrows harassment once she attains political office is a dangerous fallacy that assumes that power negates structural gender-based oppression.
This perspective (Put forward by Ita-Giwa), which is based on the assumption that political success eradicates gendered violence, while enthroning respectability politics, often obfuscates the fact that oppression operates through multiple and interconnected layers. Here: even a powerful woman remains vulnerable because patriarchal systems do not disappear simply because she enters the room. The patriarchal system merely adapts in many sinister ways to maintain insidious control. If Senator Ita-Giwa, and many like her, understands the fact that the experiences of women in power are not always uniform, she wouldn’t have made such an ignorant assertion. A privileged woman in the Senate may not experience the same overt forms of harassment as a female corps member serving in the National Assembly, but she is still likely to be undermined, excluded, or subtly coerced into conforming to male-dominated political cultures. The expectation that women must become strong enough to resist harassment instead of addressing the root problem – that is, the normalisation of gendered violence – is truly and deeply problematic.
The anarchist-feminist scholar, Voltairine de Cleyre provides a valuable perspective on why Ita-Giwa’s statement is flawed. Cleyre emphasises in her writings that systems of oppression are self-perpetuating- they simply do not dissolve because women of Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan’s status have achieved success. In Sex Slavery, she criticises the notion that women can free themselves from oppression simply by working harder or proving their worth. Taking Cleyre’s position into view, it becomes clear that political ascension does not eviscerate oppression or dismantle the structures that enable sexual harassment – it only changes the way those structures function. Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan may no longer experience the street harassment that Ekaete, Ejiro, Mairo, Ijeoma, and Temi experience in our country; but she may still be subject to sexist media coverage, political exclusion, or threats aimed at undermining her credibility. The focus, therefore, should not be on whether women can survive harassment by reaching political office but rather on why harassment remains a pervasive reality in our political spaces.
By suggesting that women must “advance” to avoid harassment, Ita-Giwa’s statement inadvertently places the burden on women to escape their own oppression rather than holding perpetrators accountable. This logic is deeply flawed for three reasons. First, it shifts responsibility to women. Instead of addressing the root causes of harassment, the statement implies that women who experience it have simply not advanced far enough. This overlooks the reality that harassment is a systemic problem that requires institutional reform. Second, it ignores the harassment of women in power. High-profile cases of sexual harassment, from corporate boardrooms, police stations, army commands, to political offices, show that no woman is immune. Thirdly, it reinforces the myth of meritocracy. The idea that women can escape harassment by working harder suggests that gender-based oppression can be overcome through sheer effort. This ignores the reality that even the most successful women confront gendered obstacles daily.
The unfortunate assertion of Senator Ita-Giwa, including those of Senators Ireti Kingibe and Abiodun Olujimi, weakens women’s struggle. The suggestion that women should focus on personal advancement, as part of respectability politics, rather than systemic reform, will only help to normalise sexism in political spaces. There is also the greater danger of the unfortunate assertion tending to erode the gains of women’s struggles and distorting the sites of women’s political agitations. Given that fear pervades the consciousness of many Nigerians, shaping how they articulate their realities, silence often becomes the preferred refuge. Rather than risk the consequences of dissent, many women may choose to still their voices, retreating into quiet resignation when sexually harassed. It is a familiar refrain – an echo of the ancient biblical cry: “Yea, there is no inheritance in the son of Jesse; to thy tents, O Israel; now see to thy own house, O David!”
A solemn acknowledgment that, in the face of disillusionment, self-preservation triumph.
Finally, Senator Ita-Giwa’s assertion that female senators have passed the stage of being sexually harassed reflects a misunderstanding of how gendered power operates. Sexual harassment is not something that women outgrow through success; rather, it is a systemic issue that persists even at the highest levels of power. As scholars like Judith Butler, Simone de Beauvoir, and Voltairine de Cleyre have argued, harassment is about maintaining patriarchal control, not about women’s individual achievements. The solution, therefore, is not for women to keep climbing in the hope of escaping harassment but for systemic changes to dismantle the structures that allow it to persist. Until these deeper power imbalances are addressed, no woman – regardless of her position – can be considered to have past the stage of sexual harassment.
Do our ignorant elites really understand these issues?
