OPINION: Men And Women Must Look Each Other In The Eye, Not The Anatomy

International Women’s Day is celebrated annually on March 8th and has been marked since the past century. It is a creation of the United Nations and aims at celebrating women’s achievements and recognising the challenges they experience. It also creates awareness on women’s social and economic issues.

This year’s celebrations highlighted the “Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action”, a historic roadmap that was signed by 189 countries 20 years ago with the aim of setting an agenda for realizing women’s rights.

The theme for this year, “Empowering Women – Empowering Humanity,” was timely. Since the UN created the day, there have been significant even if inadequate steps in the right direction. And even though many achievements have been made through the years, many serious gaps still remain.

The immediate post-Second World War period was a time of great expansion and industrialisation, rapid population growth and the rise of competing East-West ideologies. Women were becoming more vocal and active in the campaign to change against oppressive and unequal treatment and policies.

WOMEN REPRESENTATION

This was a continuation of efforts that had actually began earlier, albeit in a smaller way: In 1908, for instance, more than 15,000 women marched through the streets of New York City demanding shorter working hours, better pay, and voting rights.

Fast forward to today: Great strides have indeed been made. Women have equal voting rights with men and, across the EAC partner states, women representation in public office is in fact on an upward trend.

We are not yet there, however. For instance, despite all the gains that have been gained, less than a third of East Africa’s public servants are women.

Women political aspirants, too, still suffer many setbacks in their pursuit of high political office; thanks to the affirmative action laws, this is slowly changing in East Africa. Still, the fact that many women parliamentarians hold their positions by virtue of appointments made on affirmative criteria rather than real competitive politics shows that the society as a whole has a long way to go in discarding male chauvinism and changing its thinking toward women.

ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE

In the world of academia, women are making great strides and scaling the heights of education despite the many challenges that hinder many girls from reaching the higher echelons of academic excellence.

 Across the EAC partner states, it therefore made sense to celebrate the International Women’s Day with our heads held high. The many women professors, lawyers, doctors, and others in prestigious professions are a testimony that efforts at women empowerment have not been in vain.

An elaborate campaign aimed at enlightening our societies on matters of gender equality is now called for. Boys and girls, and men and women everywhere, should be made to understand that gender differences are only biological and have nothing to do with mental faculties.

HARD WORK AND INTEGRITY

Women and girls, on the other hand, should not hide behind the veil of victimisation nor be held back by deep-rooted stereotypes. They should seek to achieve their full potential, while expecting to receive nothing on a silver platter. The value of hard work and integrity should be instilled in our young girls.

It is only when we unleash the power of women that we can secure a future full of promise for all. Our governments in the region should indeed “step it up” and ensure we achieve the United Nations target of 50:50 gender parity before 2030. This will have an enormous impact in energising our sluggish economies as well.

Every individual partner state must now ensure that the roadblocks and setbacks that hinder women from realizing their full potential are eliminated. To echo the words of UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, no child born today should have to wait 80 years to see an equal world.

By Anne Kiruku