If you've been present on Twitter over the last week, you must've come across a Tiktok video of a female creator (X) dueting another female creator (Y) who began her day with filming spicy content with her partner. X started with saying that she's not trying to show any disrespect to the creator but she kind of does anyway by listing her achievements which, even if it might not be her intention, subtly shows that she's hinting that she's more respectable than Y. She ends this argument in the most predictable way, "And I'm single? (pause) Okay, okay."

Twitter didn't spare her, she is being roasted. It has been about three days and the drags are still coming in with no filter. From X's argument, it seems that, in her opinion, she checks all the boxes for a 'decent woman' in society and yet, she's not happily in love. Perhaps,  that was the message that she was socialized with. Do this and do that and you'll get a good man. She has done this and that and has been in a 6 year and a 3 year relationship and none of them bore marriage and so she doesn't understand why Y seems to be in a relationship where her man supports and even joins her in making adult content, something a 'decent woman' doesn't do. It triggers her so much that she records a public video detailing why she's confused and where her tone of voice gives away the fact that she feels cheated because she states at the beginning, "But I am offended because..." . So she's subtly lashing out at Y, an individual, because she doesn't have anyone else to blame, she can't attack the society that raised her, they are legion.  What stood out to me in her argument is that she has a stable job and her own home by the age of 29 but it doesn't seem to be enough for her. She seems to think that she's entitled to a romantic relationship with a man as a 'decent woman'. A superior crowning achievement that she doesn't yet have which makes her bitter and which also makes this 10 year old quote by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie all the more relevant today.

We raise girls to see each other as competitors, not for jobs or accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing but for the attention of men. We Should All Be Feminists, Chimamanda N. Adichie, TEDxEuston, 2013.

I'll link this iconic speech at the end of this article.

Society's 'Good Girl' is a construct. You're told what counts as a respectable job without knowing the conditions that surround people to influence them to engage in jobs that society doesn't generally respect. You're truly conditioned to aspire to marriage as the most important life stage as a woman. You're taught to govern your emotions and your impulses where for men, it's the norm for them be controlled by those impulses. You can't aspire to certain jobs because they're not feminine enough and so much more. In some parts of the West, these constructs are being deconstructed but in most parts of Africa, this construct floats like a cloud in the atmosphere. There are many more disruptors in Afro Gen Z and soon the process of deconstructing this narrative in Africa would dominate. With X and Y, X is not considering that their characters as individuals and their subjective life experiences might be the reason why Y is currently in a relationship and she is not. X is using the good girl construct to justify why that should be her and not Y.

When Nigerian social media personality, Bobrisky said in a previous Snapchat video, "Good girl no dey pay o. Hope you know that".

Bobrisky was referring to a specific female experience but I believe this statement can be applied all round.

'Good girl' is a cover term for society's expectations, opinions and plans but not your plans. It 'no dey pay o' because it doesn't ultimately benefit you, it limits your freedom and your right to decide what you want to do with your life, what career or passion you want to pursue, when or if you want to get married, when or if you want children or if you want to reach a point where you can spend your days single and surrounded by friends on a tropical island. Your future can be anything that you make it. Society's 'good girl' construct is a box, there's not much room to explore what you want so unless the good girl is who you want to be, just be you. If you do decide you want to be the good girl, don't tear other women down for disrupting the idea and living the way they have a right to and you should also note that the 'rewards' society claims would gravitate towards you for being the good girl is not guaranteed.