Catch them Young
Leave female freshers alone and let them enjoy their first year as undergraduates
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”Catch them young” is an idiom originally meant to train, cater to, support and guide young people. It means to start teaching or training someone at a young age to develop their skill or interest. But the meaning is quite different in Nigerian universities, catch them young is an innuendo that refers to sexually exploiting young female freshers.
Freshers are known for their naivety, which has made them susceptible to scams, and their curiosity is often exploited. Being a female fresher is a different ballgame; you’re trying to adjust to a new territory far from home and avoid being sexually exploited by male seniors. The first week of being an undergraduate is confusing, and it is easy to trust anyone who presents themselves as a safe space. Some male staylites take advantage of this and present themselves as trustworthy and helpful individuals to manipulate young, naïve women for sexual pleasures.
It’s no news that the first few weeks of a new academic session are filled with tutorials left and right. While some intend to put freshers on track for their courses, other times, it’s an avenue for bad eggs on campus to sexually exploit younger and unsuspecting female students under the guise of teaching.
This is prevalent at tertiary institutions across Nigeria; most female students have a story to share about one senior or another who tried to take advantage of them as a fresher. It’s a running joke in institutions that there’s a new set of “fresh meat” every new academic session and the previous female students are no longer in “vogue.” Catch them young connotes a predatory behaviour that objectifies women and sees them as tools for sexual pleasure.
This is considered normal behaviour because no one cares about this objectification’s effect on female students. They can’t speak up if they were sexually assaulted or harassed by a male senior because they will be met with mockery. There’s a power dynamic in this type of relationship, and the experienced staylites know this and use it to their advantage; After all, who will believe a naïve fresher that is following a senior? This exploitation is a bedrock of trauma for female students. Worse still, year in and year out, memes and videos about this behaviour circulate on social media, forcing them to relive their trauma. Objectification of women should not be a joke students in great higher institutions like ours should make, and it’s an obvious reflection of how our society perceives women.
This is not to say consensual relationships between a staylite and a freshman can’t happen. But the problem is that if the intention is to take advantage of the fresher ‘s naivety, then that’s predatory and sexual manipulation.
Women are not sexual objects that exist solely for men’s pleasure, and referring to them as objects to be caught is disrespectful and misogynistic. Women deserve to be treated and respected like every other human being and not have to live their first year in university in fear of being “used and dumped”.
Having sexual relationships is normal in universities, and there are several ways to go about it. But as Nigerians, we have backwards thinking about sex, and that’s why men think they have to do mental gymnastics and take advantage of people to get laid. As students, we need to do better and reevaluate our thinking about sexual relationships. Leveraging power dynamics and the curiosity of young women to get laid is not the proper way to have a sexual relationship.
‘Catch them young’ is predatory behaviour and a dangerous threat to young women in higher institutions. Leave female freshers alone and let them enjoy their first year as undergraduates.
Mistura Dauda, Editor-in-chief, LASU Life Newsletter🛩️
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