NewAfricanWoman Issue 35 - Flipbook - Page 5
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Editor’s
NOTE
T
he snail’s pace at which gender equality
has moved means that a child born today will
likely have to wait 80 years, yes eight decades,
before he or she can see a world where both sexes
are treated the same. That’s the sobering fact
coming out of UN Women statistics. This means
most us in the current generation will not see the back of gender
inequities during our lifetime.
This is even when the 2016 theme for International Women’s
Day on 8 March is, ‘Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for
Gender Equality’, and the African Union is marking this year
as ‘A frican Year of Human Rights, with Particular Focus on the
Rights of Women’, following on from its 2015 ‘Year of Women’s
Empowerment, towards Agenda 2063’. Therefore who can blame
doubting Thomases and Theresas who contend that such efforts
consistently fall flat if tangible results on gender parity are to miss
yet another generation.
As will be seen over the next few weeks, women-themed,
empowering-focused events will be all the buzz. Rightly so,
perhaps. But as a colleague of mine bluntly puts it (and he is male
by the way): “The world has fought and resolved deadly wars.
Countries have built nuclear weapons, and man has been to the
moon and back. But in 2016 women are still fighting for equal
rights. I am so fatigued and it’s hopeless to think things will
change anytime soon.”
I don’t disagree with my South African friend Moeketsi and,
yes, in as much as most of us African women remain optimistic,
and there have been some positive strides in this debate, gender
equality is a frustratingly slow process.
In cases where some headway has been made (such as in
countries like The Gambia where the harmful practice of FGM
has now been banned), the positives are pulled right back when
atrocities such as forced child marriage (see opinion piece on Page
38), or women are still being used as weapons of war – cue the
still missing Chibok girls in Nigeria and the victims of atrocious
rape in Eastern Congo – are still the bane. But away from
these gory situations, even in the safe and plush environment
of corporate Africa women still fare miserably. Despite years of
trying to break the so-called “glass ceiling”, sexism and misogyny
continue to hold back some of the best talent and intelligent
minds in the corporate world, simply because they are women. As
such, not only are the majority still treated as underdogs, they are
paid less than their male counterparts even when they are better
performers. As we reported in our last edition (NAW December/
January) in the Special Report ‘Where are the Women in Africa’s
Boardrooms?’, in which we extensively quoted from a 2015
African Development Bank Report, a litany of shameful facts
and figures reveal the state of the female-male balance in African
boardrooms and by extension Africa at large.
Something is not right, and has been so for millennia! What
can be done, and who will bring about the change?
The inaugural New African Woman Forum on 10-11 March is
joining this persistent debate, alongside highlighting many other
issues it seeks to tackle and add a voice to. Our view is that it is us
women who will change the game and fast-forward gender parity.
African women should not have to wait another 15 years, let
alone 80 years, to be equal partners in a continent on the rise and
to which they are 50% contributors towards its success. However,
this will only happen under the right conditions, with favourable
access to those conditions. As of now, and as has been the case for
years, this simple logic has been denied. In the words of Namibia’s
First Lady (a term she wants banished), “African women need
total empowerment, not tokenism”! Half-measured policies on
gender parity have indeed not taken African women very far!
Read what they have to say as they describe themselves as a New
African Woman on pages 8-14.
It’s time to change the game, Africa! Delve in and enjoy this
Power Issue!