Sister Betina, Brother Joshua, please retire from the Ministry of Sexual Promotion.
Not every successful woman slept her way to the top. Sometimes, she actually worked her way there.
Because apparently, the moment a woman is pretty, competent and happens to have a good working relationship with a male boss, the office gossip department immediately opens an investigation.
They laugh together in the corridor? “We knew it!”
She gets assigned an important project?
“Anabebwa…”
At this point, can people please remember that a woman can be attractive and actually be good at her job? Revolutionary, I know.
She can have a pretty face, a sharp brain, excellent communication skills, discipline, ambition and an impressive work ethic, all in the same smoking-hot body.
There is no law saying beauty and competence must take turns. But somehow, when a beautiful woman is doing well, people struggle to process the possibility that she may simply be qualified.
If she is friendly with her male boss, the rumours begin.
If she is comfortable around him, people start connecting imaginary dots.
If he trusts her with important work, suddenly her entire career history is being investigated by people who have never even worked on the project.
And if she gets promoted?
Congratulations. You have officially activated the Office Conspiracy Department.
The funny thing is that people rarely apply the same suspicion to men. But let a woman have the same professional relationship, and suddenly everybody becomes a relationship expert.
“They are too close.”
“Something is going on.” “She knows how to play her cards.”
Maybe she does. Maybe her card is called competence. Maybe she knows her job. Maybe she delivers.
Maybe she brings ideas to the table.
Maybe she has spent years developing skills that people never bothered to notice because they were too busy noticing her face and body.
I know, I know. We have had kina Matipa. We have seen situations where office relationships and power dynamics have crossed professional boundaries.
But not every boss is Jonasi.
And not every woman sitting next to the boss is there because she knows which buttons to press, professionally or otherwise.
Sometimes, she is simply the best person for the job.
Here is the thing… being pretty does not cancel out being hard-working.
A woman does not become less intelligent because she is beautiful.
She does not become less qualified because her boss happens to like working with her.
And she certainly does not owe people an explanation every time her career moves forward.
Of course, workplace favouritism exists. But there is a difference between questioning unfairness and automatically assuming that a successful woman must have slept her way into the room.
That assumption is not only lazy. It is deeply disrespectful.
Because while people are busy whispering about how she supposedly got the job, she might actually be the person doing the job.
And sometimes, ironically, the woman everyone says “anabebwa” is the one carrying the entire project.
Carrying the meetings.
Carrying the team.
And somehow, still carrying the office gossip too.
So, Sister Betina, Brother Joshua, next time you see a pretty woman who is close to her male boss and doing well at work, perhaps pause before writing your own Nollywood screenplay.
