A Southeast Nigerian discourse on sex-role gender stereotypes as a human rights violation

Women in Nigeria continue to be subject to gender-based violence, inequality, and discrimination, even though the law in Nigeria generally provides for equality. This research paper explores how gender stereotyping causes and contributes to the oppression of women. The emergence of Gender-based stereotyping (GBS) as a human rights concern considers that stereotypes designate specific features or functions for a group. For example, a notion that women are slothful while men are hardworking can profoundly impact the compliance of human rights by reinforcing discrimination as well as inequality. Also, patronising stereotypes (like women are warm, homemakers, nurturing and caring) serve to vindicate a system of patriarchy where men play pivotal roles and women marginal ones. Over the years the United Nations (UN) has strived to make visible stereotyping based on gender, disability, and ethnicity among others. This study reviews gender relations, social realities, and experiences of the Nigerian people. It finds that gender stereotypes are the cause as well as the manifestation of structural disadvantages, gender issues, and violations of women’s rights. The analysis is based on anti-stereotyping literature that adopts a transformative approach to stereotypes as the underlying mechanism for rights violations. The study identifies and names gender stereotypes most manifest in the southeast Nigerian context. Several sources are used to gather data, like personal/primary and secondary sources. The examples and arguments are built on the Convention on Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) materials as well as relevant examples from Nigerian political history. It reveals specific human rights violations like the right to an adequate standard of living, freedom of expression, and right to equality, that arise from GBS. The analysis shows the essence of naming and contesting stereotypes. This paper proposes a lens that readers should adopt to adequately address the harmfulness and wrongfulness of stereotypes.