Personal Social Status Social status can be defined as the reference, prestige, or honor ascribed to an individual's personality or position in society. It could be attained by virtue of family or racial background; or through innate ability or life achievements. Some other factors that determine one's social status include gender, occupation, religion, lifestyle, and education.

While culture is usually defined as a way of life of a group of people within a geographical setting, however, there also exists an individual level of culture known as personal culture. Personal culture is usually an expression of one’s personal beliefs or philosophy and perspective on life issues generally. It is usually a reflection of an individual’s upbringing; which is made up of culture, lifestyle and belief system the person is exposed to. Others are gender, history, education, residency location, and disability (“Social Categories”).

It is common for one's culture to be predominantly dominated by society's general customs; that, however, does not negate the existence of the personal views of life. In large societies where diverse cultures exist, it is common to see some cultures dominate others. These cultural diversities can be seen in almost everywhere with a large population made up of different subgroups. While these subgroups are generally classified under one tradition, the culture disparities could, however, still be noticed. The disparities are owing to differences in historical backgrounds of each subgroup. They mainly impact people's inclination and preference to various elements of their existence. It usually defines their identification, approach, and habits. One of the habits generally affected by culture disparity relating to gender is healthcare.

Cultural Heritage of Igbo People

The Igbo people are the indigenes of the Igboland, which spreads across six states of the Southeast geopolitical zones of Nigeria, West Africa. While the origin of the Igbo people has been subject to various speculations from different researchers and opinion leaders, these people, however, have elegantly maintained their inherited reach cultures from their ancestors (“Igbo”).Being the second largest region in the southern part of the country, the land, as expected, it consists of different subgroups, which explains its cultural diversity. The diversity has made it easy for an average Igbo man to live, survive and expand anywhere as they are usually found holding their own outside their enclave both within and outside the country. The critical elements of the Igbo people traditions include their reach recipe, dressing, language and occupation.

However, while the Igbo people are always hailed for their reach cultures, high level of intellectualism, and hard work, there are other sides of the cultures which have been widely criticized by many for being too antipeople and antidevelopment. Just like many other African traditions, the Igbo culture has little...

Some of these socio-cultural biases against Igbo women include widowhood discrimination, female genital mutilation, and girl child marriage.
Widowhood Discrimination

In Igboland, the widowhood began immediately a woman’s husband is dead and diverse rituals are expected to be performed by the widows. The culture has no regard for the emotional state of the newly widowed woman whatsoever. It is compelled on her to fulfill all righteousness as stipulated by the culture regardless of her perception towards the practice and her feeling at the given time. In Ebonyi, one of the states in the region, for instance, widows are subjected to different levels of rituals depending on the position of the deceased husband. While these rituals vary from different education level and social status in a given community, there still exists, however, those that must compulsorily be carried out irrespective of the background...…while the late effects include “infertility, chronic pelvic pain, painful menstruation, cyst formation and vesico-vaginal fistule” Uzoamaka, et al (year). Other effects of FGM are obstetric risk and complications which usually occur during labor. For the psychological part of the effects, the inhuman treatment of having to be under an unsterilized ‘knife' without any form of anesthesia, and with legs forcefully held down and bound for a long period while the ‘surgery’ last, is nothing but mental torture.

The girl child marriage also has negative effects similar to that of FGM. Exposure to sex and childbearing at an immature age is very dangerous to the wellbeing of the victim. One of the health risks of early marriage is the vesico-vaginal fistula (VVF) usually suffered by the young women. The consequences of this, as observed by Chuckwu (2012) is that whenever the victims are diagnosed with the disease, they usually feel frustrated and worthless. The VVF which is a direct "direct pathological communication between the urinary bladder and the vagina" usually leads to the uncontrolled leakage of urine into the vagina from the bladder. The experience, apart from being painful, is commonly responsible for many complications including the inability to bear more children despite still being young. Chukwu et al describe the case as “children [begetting] children.” With VVF which, the essence of the culture is utterly defeated while the young victims remain on the receiving end.

Conclusion

The Igbo culture is a heritage of the land which observers have been regarded as being highly reach. It has many positive elements which are seen as a pride to the indigenes. However, some negative sides of the culture like violence and degradation against female gender need to be abolished. Womanhood should be held in esteem; therefore, any cultural practice that is short of that needs to be reviewed in a…