VIOLENT TRADITIONAL GENDER PRACTICES AND IMPLICATIONS FOR NATION BUILDING PROCESS IN NIGERIA

Abstract

The traditional Nigerian society has being characterized by multiple forms of gender-based violence. These violence ranges from the desperate quest for a male child, sending of the male child to beg for arms on the street, placing married women in pudah, educational placement based on gender, denial of widowhood rights, sexual assault, denial of entrepreneurial rights on gender basis etc. This paper is conceptualized on sex-role theory as a factor that conditions and reinforces masculine violence against the feminine gender as well as feminine violence against their masculine counterparts. The work showed that the contemporary Nigerian society has continually struggled to conquer the consistent re-appearance of these violent gender-based behaviours in many aspects of the Nigerian national life. It therefore called for gender re-orientation for national development through private-public partnership in promoting gender-based laws, seminars, rallies, meetings, teachings, symposia, debates etc