Veteran Nollywood actor Jim Iyke has stirred controversy with his remarks on modern feminism, calling it a movement that has drifted so far from its roots that it now feels like “a kind of assault.”
Speaking in a recent interview with The EchoRoom, the 48-year-old actor said while early feminism was meant to tackle real issues like patriarchy and gender imbalance, the current wave seems more focused on creating unnecessary rivalry between men and women.
“I consider it a crime, a kind of assault,” Iyke said. “The perpetrators of this… clearly, I would not name the magazine… launched a clever campaign to push sales. Who were their chief readers? Women. So they devised an ideology that allowed women to challenge the status quo and compete with men in the same space.”
He claimed the movement was initially driven by a women’s magazine seeking to boost sales, which eventually shaped a mindset where women no longer feel the need for men.
“This whole ideology of ‘we do not need a man, anything a man can do we can do better’… escalated, and blew it out of proportion. Now it has been adopted as a lifestyle, and a new cultural standard,” he added.
Iyke also criticised what he sees as double standards within modern feminism, saying it encourages a two-faced approach to gender roles rather than a natural balance.
“The double standard of it all is what makes me question the ideology in the first place. Do you not understand the falsehood of it? The two-faced approach to it?” he said.
He stressed that men and women should work in harmony, not in rivalry.
“I believe men and women have distinct roles and when they work together in harmony, that is when true balance is achieved. That is what they are yet to understand,” he said.
