Life On Campus With Mizdee- Male Porters In Female Hostels

                            

I know many people would disagree with me but I think male porters working in female hostels, is totally uncalled for and improper. Some people might say ‘what about the security of lives and properties?’ Why then do we have security guards? I know what is on your mind! Who says females cannot be security guards? Less I divert from my subject, what in Pete’s sake are male porters doing in female hostels. Male porters go around pulling off posters and bills early in the morning. I did not know that pulling off posters requires energy. Even if it requires energy, who says females cannot do that? I did not know when cleaning and keeping the environment became a man’s job. Yet, these same set of people believe in patriarchy.

I remember a certain episode I witnessed in one of the female hostels. A male porter claimed he was going around pulling off posters and then peeped through an open window; he then knocked when someone complained. Tell me, what was he looking for? Some months ago, it was reported that a male porter caught a girl bathing in the wee hours of a particular day. Imagine! Do not get me wrong, I do not encourage nor support wrong attitudes but at the same time, that is preposterous. Common! Who does that? I did not know there was a law that says a female porter should not move round a female hostel. 

Interestingly, the last time I checked, the Advanced English Dictionary describes ‘a porter’ as someone who is employed to carry supplies or people’s luggage or someone that guards an entrance. In our own case, the hall entrance. I do not know any of the porters who got their job description right. (Laughs loudly) I do not see pulling off posters, walking round female halls, peeping through windows to instruct etc. in the description.  They do not carry our bags when we return to school from break neither do they help us with anything. They guard our hall entrances. Is that supposed to be a joke? This people sleep off their time at work especially at night. Hey! That is an understatement. I can still remember a situation that occurred in one of the hostels many months ago. A male figure came into that female hall, masked, to steal in the midnight. He jumped in through the fence, to be fair. The girl, who saw him, screamed and called some others who were awake. Through it all, our dear porter ‘dutifully and faithfully’ slept on. Sometimes, a female wakes up to the voice of a male porter in the middle of the night. Tell me, is he her husband? What is he doing at such hours that a female porter cannot do?

Who is fooling whom?