Give Caesar what belongs to Caesar
Too many superficial efforts to create gender equality have gobbled up time needed to address actual fundamental and structural challenges that stand in the way of genuine women empowerment.
Gender equality is now being artificially used to score cheap political points and create a false sense of accomplishment in the eyes of the watching world.
If a woman is wheelbarrowed into a position without addressing the cause of why she needed to be pushed into that job, we are actually deceiving our mothers and the girl child, and denying them real emancipation.
There is no doubt that history has been very unkind to the female species and that radical steps need to be taken to rectify that legacy of exclusion and oppression.
But instead of relentlessly pursuing this dream for our women and girls, Namibia has embarked on cosmetic window dressing, antics such as creating gender quarters for positions in political parties and Parliament.
What this scratching-on-the-surface affair creates is a fake sense that all is well in the motherland, quietening the voices of dissent. But what Namibian women truly want is an environment where they can thrive without fear or favour – or a little push from behind.
Women do not need favours - they need fairness and equal access to all the catalysts that have made men the dominant force in a world that purports to love all its children equally.
Gender equality is now being artificially used to score cheap political points and create a false sense of accomplishment in the eyes of the watching world.
If a woman is wheelbarrowed into a position without addressing the cause of why she needed to be pushed into that job, we are actually deceiving our mothers and the girl child, and denying them real emancipation.
There is no doubt that history has been very unkind to the female species and that radical steps need to be taken to rectify that legacy of exclusion and oppression.
But instead of relentlessly pursuing this dream for our women and girls, Namibia has embarked on cosmetic window dressing, antics such as creating gender quarters for positions in political parties and Parliament.
What this scratching-on-the-surface affair creates is a fake sense that all is well in the motherland, quietening the voices of dissent. But what Namibian women truly want is an environment where they can thrive without fear or favour – or a little push from behind.
Women do not need favours - they need fairness and equal access to all the catalysts that have made men the dominant force in a world that purports to love all its children equally.
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Namibian Sun
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