Odu Ose Otura

If I were to personify Ifa, I would say Ifa was the first feminist in the traditional Yoruba society.

In the Odu Ose Otura, Ifa speaks unequivocally about gender equality (not to be confused with gender role), and it goes something like this: "In anything we do, if we do not guarantee the place of women, that thing will not succeed. We should acknowledge the power of women, if we acknowledge the power of women, the world will be more balanced and peaceful.” Basically, this odu teaches us that men and women are equal, and men should not undervalue women.

The question is: if Ifa, which is the totality of Yoruba's spiritual, moral and natural philosophies, frowns upon the oppression of women and speaks so explicitly and eloquently about gender equality in the traditional Yoruba society, why then do we find traces of misogyny in the Yoruba society, today? Let's look no further than the religious proselytizing of the Abrahamic faiths (mainly Christianity and Islam) in the Yorubaland.

In other words, misogyny, as a concept, was introduced into most African societies; more specifically, Yorubaland by the Christian missionaries and Mohammedan Islamists. And as evidenced by the Odu Ifa verse above, prior to the advent of Christianity and Islam, misogyny was totally frowned upon in the traditional Yoruba society.

In fact, it suffices to know that, in the Old Kingdom, the Alaafin and the Oyomesi rejected Mohammedanism, now Islam, as the religion of the state, for its misogynistic doctrines, leading to an all out war and the enslavement of the Yorubas by the Mohammedans and the the Portuguese.

All in all, be a man; respect the womb. Look your lady in the eye; plant a kiss into her lips; recite Odu Ose Otura into her ears and tell her how much she complements you.