March Essay Competition

March 9 — March 22, 2026,

Prompt

The average man, regardless of creed, family background, religion, personal convictions, or social, economic, or marital status, will always feel threatened or intimidated by a successful, strong, independent woman.

Competition Home Page

Essay

Score

Judged before Known: Rethinking Success, Partnership and Worth beyond the Breadwinner Ideal

By Hamida Nasir

March 13, 2026 · 853 words · 5 min read

⭐ 9th Place

The average man, regardless of creed, family background, religion, personal convictions, or social, economic, or marital status, will always feel threatened or intimidated by a successful, strong, independent woman. Women are often judged not for who they are, but for what their independence represents. The discomfort surrounding strong and successful women is rarely about success itself; rather, it emerges from deeply rooted social expectations that define men as providers and women as dependents. When a woman achieves stability, autonomy, and success on her own terms, she does not merely succeed, she disrupts a script society has long relied upon. And disruption is often mistaken for intimidation.   Last November, while I was in NYSC camp in Adamawa State, I told a newly found friend that I intended to remain there instead of redeploying closer to home. I explained that I loved the environment and wanted to stay. His immediate question was whether I had relatives nearby. When I said no, he seemed disturbed and advised that women were not supposed to live far from home without someone watching over them. What appeared to him as concern revealed something deeper: independence in women is still viewed as deviation rather than normal choice.   This pattern extends far beyond personal encounters. Imagine a bank welcoming a new manager. When a man walks into the meeting room, formally dressed and confident, colleagues wait to evaluate him after he speaks or introduces policies. Judgment follows performance. But when the new manager is a woman, whispers often begin before she says a word — comments about her appearance, predictions about her temperament, assumptions about her leadership style. A successful man is granted neutrality; a successful woman must first survive suspicion.   Women in positions of authority are frequently accused of sleeping their way to the top, as though competence alone could not explain their achievements. The assumption that a man must exist behind a woman’s success reveals how difficult it remains for society to imagine female accomplishment as self-made. Success, when embodied by a man, is expected; when embodied by a woman, it demands explanation.   As Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie observes, “The person more qualified to lead is not the physically stronger person. It is the more intelligent, the more knowledgeable, the more creative, more innovative. And there are no hormones for those attributes.” Leadership ability is not gendered, yet perceptions of leadership often are.   These expectations extend into personal life choices. Once, someone advised me — out of what he believed was goodwill — that I could pursue a master’s degree before marriage but should avoid a PhD because it would make it harder to find a husband. The warning implied that a woman’s intellectual growth must remain carefully measured so as not to threaten male comfort.   Financial success exposes similar contradictions. Women who earn more than their husbands are sometimes labeled domineering or accused of becoming the “head” of the household simply because they possess greater economic power. Yet women rarely feel diminished by a husband’s greater wealth. This double standard raises an important question: is success merely success, or does it become something more — a symbol of autonomy and power, when achieved by a woman?   Perhaps the issue is not that the average man is intimidated by strong, independent women. Rather, many men have been conditioned to believe that their primary value lies in providing stability and financial security. When a woman has already built these for herself, traditional expectations offer no clear role for him, creating uncertainty about what he can contribute beyond provision. The discomfort, then, is less about female success and more about a collapsing definition of masculinity.   Adichie captures this tension clearly when she writes, “We say to girls: You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful, otherwise you will threaten the man.” Women who succeed are often those who refuse to shrink themselves to preserve outdated expectations.   Why, then, are women asked to limit their dreams in order to protect fragile social norms? Strong and successful women have not abandoned femininity; they have simply refused confinement. Their existence challenges society to redefine partnership, success, and worth beyond dominance or dependence.  Instead of measuring leadership through provision alone, partnerships must be grounded in mutual contribution — intellectual, emotional, and economic. Leadership within a relationship should not belong to whoever earns more, but to whoever acts with greater responsibility, empathy, and wisdom in a given moment. A healthy partnership is not a hierarchy of provider and dependent, but a collaboration between two capable individuals whose strengths shift and support one another over time. When worth is no longer tied to breadwinning, men are freed from the pressure of proving masculinity through dominance, and women are freed from the expectation of shrinking to preserve it.   The real question, then, is not whether women should become smaller to ease discomfort, but whether society is prepared to redefine success, partnership, and identity beyond gendered expectations — a world in which worth is measured not by dominance or provision, but by character, contribution, and shared humanity.

Final score

Average from 2 judges

76.8%

Judge 1 — 58.5%

Judge 2 — 95.0%

Average — 76.8%