Gender Equality and Respect: where does Africa Stand?
Gender Equality and Respect: where does Africa Stand?
By
Florence Mukanga
Culture is an important instrument of development but can also be a strong obstacle to development especially with regards to issues such as gender equality and respect for gender rights. It is crucial to explore the relations between culture and gender equality as gender relations shape culture or maybe it is the other way round. I am not really interested in debating this issue. My issue revolves around the manipulation of culture to create gender-based violence.
Cultural meanings given to women and men vary from society to society. It is an undeniable fact that traditionally in most African societies (at least in my own Shona Culture) women have had a lesser influence in decision making and less autonomy. This culture, though it did not endorse sexual violence and harassment of women in these societies but it somehow promoted this kind of behavior indirectly by making women assume kind of an inferior position.
However the rising prominence of the promotion of women's rights has challenged these traditional norms of culture. This development I would like to call the rise of a ‘new culture.’
In the ‘new culture’ there has been a Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) which defines violence against women as ‘any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, force or denial of freedom, whether happening in public or in private life.’
Bodies like the United Nations have also joined the world in the fight against gender violence. The development community’s approach to gender empowerment has evolved since the 1970s when the United Nations’ International Year of Women in 1975 and international women’s decade (1976-85) saw the formation of many women’s ministries and the adoption of ‘Women in Development’ policies by governments and non-governmental bodies.
Presently, when the whole world is fighting to achieve the Millenium Development Goals, respect for gender equality is crucial. The MDG of promoting gender equality and empowering women was set to be achieved 10 years earlier than most of the Millennium Development Goals that face a deadline of 2015 and this testifies to the importance that this goal carries.
The year 2010 marks the end of the first decade of the new millennium and presents an opportunity to examine past achievements and measure the extent to which we have all implemented the resolutions made at the beginning of the new millennium. The major questions that remain unanswered are: how far have we gone in terms of achieving this goal as Africans? Has the top to bottom approach been sufficient to thwart gender violence? What is the way forward on this issue?
There have been strides in the area of equal girls' enrolment in primary school but the other two indicators still lag behind with women's share of paid employment and women's equal representation in national parliaments still remaining very low in Africa according to the United Nations MDG report for 2009.
In my own country Zimbabwe, where women constitute 52 per cent of entire population, there were only 7 Female Ministers against 33 Male Ministers in the cabinet as at 17 June 2009. The same applies to Malawi where Women in Malawi also constitute 52 per cent of the total 12 million Malawi population and yet recent statistics indicate that there are 6 women cabinet ministers out of a total of 37, 9 female chairpersons of parastatal organisations out of 47 and only 4 of 27 judges of the High Court and Supreme Court are women. Men continue to dominate in the public life.
In my opinion, it is crucial for us to know that culture is not static but dynamic. Cultural values are continually being re-interpreted in response to new needs and conditions. Some values are reaffirmed in this process, while others are challenged as no longer appropriate. I think this whole idea is taking too long to sink in most of our African societies.
Sources
1. Eunice Chipangula, Malawi to adopt the legislative quota based system to achieve gender equality in politics and public life, an article published on the Standing upon God’s promise blog on Wednesday, September 26, 2007.
Is culture really dynamic or static?
It may be true that we had rich cultural values that encompassed gender equality and respect to a high degree. This argument is even backed by your reference to the existence of women "Kings" in the past. But do you think what prevailed in the past actually manifests what exists today? I do not.
I think you have helped more in favor of the argument that women have as much as men do have to offer to society, at least by virtue of their historical record. The point is this doesn’t appear to be the case in today’s Africa. And the question is why?
I want to believe that you will agree with me that if culture is dynamic, as you have alluded, we expect the situation for women to have been better than it is today. If we had women as heads of government in pre-colonial days what is preventing us from having women at decision making levels in modern day Africa?
This brings us to the question: is culture actually dynamic or static? If it is dynamic then it must be moving backwards, rather than forward.
Gender Equality and Respect: where does Africa Stand?
Having said that, my understanding of this entire ruckus about gender equality and respect and its related issues is that it is all about the mind set.
In this part of Africa, the women who, interestingly, happen to be the most hard-up, have for a long time been involved in the development of society. At least for the Gambia and Senegal, where I happen to be a little bit familiar with, even before the coining of the terms Millennium Development Goals, women have been instrumental in effort towards achieving these target goals - poverty eradication, food security, health demands, etc. So the fact that they themselves form an interest in the 8 universal goals indicates what we do often prefer not to talk about, the blatant refusal by the imperiously patriachical societies to fully accept their role as development partners. This has been possible largely by way of not only manipulation of culture, but also controlling the mindset of women. Our versions of politics kind of aided this line of pursuance a whole lot. Politicians here, on a daily basis, openly acknowledge the unmatched devotion of the women to calls for national development, yet it has become a daunting task to assign them with formal responsibilities.
If, for instances, as in Gambia, women make 52% of the population, what is responsible for them not seeing the need to take advantage of their potential political dominance? (And this scenario appears to be the same for many countries, yet in all of these women remain the most underprivileged with virtually no voice). What more do we need to get convinced that the woman means just as much as her male counterpart?
In Gambia, anytime the debate arises we are sure to be reminded of the vice president being a female, the Speaker of parliament being a female, as well as a handful of puppet nominees in the National Assembly who only help in pursuing the agenda of literarily blindfolding their fellow women.
Ask for a sincere answer as to what difference do these appointed positions make in society, and you will never get it.
Positions with real authority are what women need, not positions micromanaged by the same domineering men. This, in my view, is only possible if women earn their positions rather than it given to them for free as in nominating to parliament or appointing them to positions based on quota agreement.
Awareness; it is what women have been deprived of. And the culpable men are aided by these few privileged women in society. Selfishness, qualified by insincerity, is the word. In other words, it is not only men, but women too are to blame. If culture was manipulated, it certainly couldn’t have been done devoid of the input of some women.
As a student leader, I had a male and a female candidate in mind for a particular student ministerial position. A female colleague of mind vouched for the male candidate ‘‘because the position needs an energetic person.’’
Now this is a heinous misrepresentation of the reality. But unfortunately it is what prevails in today’s society.
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Gender Equality and Respect: Where Does Africa Stand?
I think the issue is many of our cultures are not well understood. During the course of interaction with outside world, especially Europe (slave trade and colonial eras) most of our cultures got distorted. And that is where the misunderstanding began. We in Africa have rich cultural values that encompassed gender equality and respect to a high degree. Let me quickly add that in my country (the Gambia) there used to be women "Kings", I mean women as heads of states and governments in the pre-colonial era. To me this is a clear manifestation of the recognition of the pivotal role women play all sectors of society. And there are overwhelming evidence to show that women in Arica in the olden days were seen as partners in development rather than subservient to their male counterparts.