The Beauty Tax on Nigeria’s Poorest Women

A perfect illustration of how beauty standards and economic class affect Nigerian women would be the unprovoked, misogynistic classification of Nigerian women into ‘baddies’, ‘civilians’, and ‘amotekuns’ on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) in 2023. Women were yet again pigeonholed under the male gaze, this time, their financial status was evaluated via an arbitrary and sexist standard that conflated physical ‘attractiveness’ with wealth. The interpretation of the term ‘amotekun’, which is the lowest rung on that hierarchy, holds contempt directed toward women perceived to be low earners or from low-income households. It also directly implies that because these women supposedly have neither the money to spend on themselves, nor the socially ideal ‘refinement’, they are opportunistic and always on the prowl for spenders.