Opinion / Letters
Fighting for the women equity rights and freedoms: the patriarchal women are to blame! Making the cause long and painful!
29 Jan 2017 at 18:47hrs | Views
Dear Nimi Princewill,
The problem here is not the men-folk who are oppressing us women so successfully but it's the women who are letting other women down dear Nimi! We need to fight those women first ever to succeed in our fight for the emancipation of our women and girls. This fight is challenging indeed: fighting some women in our societies; an uphill task; those women we have to fight are enjoying a particular kind of status in our societies. They are very powerful because they do have those positions given to them by our patriarchal societies to crush "rebels".
Our patriarchal societies have survived this long because of these twisted women who openly fight those progressive women: those women who genuinely want equity; equal rights of men and women in our societies. The US Secretary of state Madeleine Albright once said: there is a "special place in hell" for women who make lives of other women difficult! A small percentage of women are genuinely fighting for their rights in the societies of Zimbabwe. They want fairness, a recourse to principles of justice for all: men and women. Equity will lead to equality of both men and women with time and a considerable amount of investing in education.
It is sometimes not easy to actually engage with women who are custodians of patriarchal institutions. They will not give up their positions easily. Their powerbase is so solid because they enjoy the recognition from the patriarchs: the men in the society. Painfully still some of these women have adequate education but still, because of the solid positions have in those institutions, will make sure those women who fight for progress will be crushed and are considered rebels, are denigrated by the very patriarchal women first and foremost.
The key issue here dear Nimi Pricewill is to re-educate women first to appreciate gender equity and investing in women emancipation is actually beneficial to the families, clan, community and the nation as a whole. Women progress and empowerment should never be seen as rhetoric to while away time in beer halls but a fundamental fact that can bring development; can bring transformations to communities that demand active women participation.
When Bill Gates, on a visit to Saudi Arabia; was asked about what the Saudi Establishment should do to speedy their economic development in the country. Bill Gates answered: "I do not see how, if 50% of the population in Saudi Arabia is not allowed to participate in the country's development. Quite contrary in Zimbabwe, it's not that we are not allowed to participate in the country's development at all; our position as women is still considered that of second class citizens. Alone the President of Zimbabwe: Robert Gabriel Mugabe has a very low opinion of Zimbabwean women generally. On several occasions he has openly spoken without shame of women as not to be equal to men by whatever standards! Such messages are opium to the general populations of Zimbabwe as well as Africa. Such messages defeat women emotionally, when someone of a position of a president tell the growing youth that women are less than men: they take that on board as true and uphold that message as valid. We shall forever remain struggling socially economically and otherwise because opportunities are wholly not available for our younger female gender generation: women as the cornerstones, the rock of every family, community and the nation. In a nutshell we shall remain backward in development terms. We shall continue to admire and envy development in other countries forever!
There are societies to date who will send boy-children to school in favour of girl-children. For any meaningful development to take place we need educated women to develop their communities and uplift families from poverty. There will never be any meaningful development without adequate education for our girls and young women.
Gender equity also means looking after our children and respect for the growing children. Girl-children are always given the worst form of treatment in homes than boys. When we girls grow up we do not have our self-esteem, we grow up struggling to be heard, or seen as human beings in the first place. We enjoy being a woman when there are negotiations for marriage. The girl will be "sold" to the man she is marrying. At this home she does not have a full status of belonging to the home until she proves herself: working hard, considering herself last to all members of the family she is married to. How painful!
A good African woman is a woman who is smiling all the time: A woman who laughs and who is kind to all. Can that be possible? Is the society not asking too much from a woman? A woman is not supposed to have feelings at all: Feelings belong to the man and not the woman. A woman who expresses some feeling is a "troublesome" woman and must be corporally punished. Umfazi ongalaleliyo uyatshaywa, kumele atshaywe! That is the rhythm and grammar in most homes. Femicides and girlicides are common in our societies: read our social media and you find horror stories of fatally battered women and girl children: those rebels who wanted and demanded change in their lives got killed in cold-blood. There are women after all. Their death is of no significance at all.
We need to start by condemning men that abuse children. Those women who conceal and protect paedophiles verbally or otherwise, should be condemned and criminalized by law. Parents who send girl-children to early marriages should be punished by law: severe punishment should be meted to them to send a message to all and sundry that we cannot tolerate criminal practices in any form.
Our fight dear Nimi should start fighting women who fail other women and young girls in our Zimbabwe societies. They should know that there is a "place in hell" especially made for those women, twisted women who make life of progressive women who are fighting for the good of our girl-children difficult. We need to look at some of our traditions that hinder progress in our fight for the emancipation of women and girl-children: lobola is one of them!
Let's emphasize education to our girl-children, only an educated woman will know her rights that are enshrined in the UN conventions and many other conventions that promote the rights of women and girl children. Mothers should give their daughters the best education they should get first and not the "best" husband she can get before education to empower herself. What empowerment has a girl without academic education offer in any marriage? There is nothing as sickening as realizing in a mother that she is actually looking for a potential man to marry her daughter off. Did we not get it from our parents that when you have adequate education you are confident enough to go into any marriage?
Dear Nimi we have a long way to go as you can see. We should never give up the fight: fighting for women's emancipation is a noble cause that can never be casually abandoned. Women's emancipation will not be given to us but we must fight to get it by all means possible: our girl-children will not forgive us if we gave up the fight now. Some foundation must be laid by us so that our girl-children do not start from scratch!
We need to teach our societies to respect women regardless of whether she is married or not married. Respect cannot be determined by man in a woman's life. This notion is wholly outdated (Ko imi munonzi amai ani?) We cannot afford this overly backward attitude to unmarried women. Those women have brought up children single-handedly: they deserve respect. Some children from single headed parenthood have done exceptionally well in their career lives. We see failed children from solid family institutions and we wonder then: where did it go wrong! The society already sentenced and labelled fatherless children as future criminals and alcohol misuse and drug traffickers!
Single women should resist pressure from friends and relatives to get married. Those single women too should learn to respect their decision to remain so without any pressure to get pseudo respect: respect because there is then a man who defines respect in a woman's life: how silly! As you can see now dear Nimi, it's those nitty gritty issues that need to be ironed out and bring awareness to our communities that gender equity is here to stay. We demand respect some of us because we have done well in our duties and responsibilities at home and in our career lives. Nobody will take that away from us.
Let's debate this dear Nimi Princewill: perhaps some few women will join us and we have a broader debating platform:
The problem here is not the men-folk who are oppressing us women so successfully but it's the women who are letting other women down dear Nimi! We need to fight those women first ever to succeed in our fight for the emancipation of our women and girls. This fight is challenging indeed: fighting some women in our societies; an uphill task; those women we have to fight are enjoying a particular kind of status in our societies. They are very powerful because they do have those positions given to them by our patriarchal societies to crush "rebels".
Our patriarchal societies have survived this long because of these twisted women who openly fight those progressive women: those women who genuinely want equity; equal rights of men and women in our societies. The US Secretary of state Madeleine Albright once said: there is a "special place in hell" for women who make lives of other women difficult! A small percentage of women are genuinely fighting for their rights in the societies of Zimbabwe. They want fairness, a recourse to principles of justice for all: men and women. Equity will lead to equality of both men and women with time and a considerable amount of investing in education.
It is sometimes not easy to actually engage with women who are custodians of patriarchal institutions. They will not give up their positions easily. Their powerbase is so solid because they enjoy the recognition from the patriarchs: the men in the society. Painfully still some of these women have adequate education but still, because of the solid positions have in those institutions, will make sure those women who fight for progress will be crushed and are considered rebels, are denigrated by the very patriarchal women first and foremost.
The key issue here dear Nimi Pricewill is to re-educate women first to appreciate gender equity and investing in women emancipation is actually beneficial to the families, clan, community and the nation as a whole. Women progress and empowerment should never be seen as rhetoric to while away time in beer halls but a fundamental fact that can bring development; can bring transformations to communities that demand active women participation.
When Bill Gates, on a visit to Saudi Arabia; was asked about what the Saudi Establishment should do to speedy their economic development in the country. Bill Gates answered: "I do not see how, if 50% of the population in Saudi Arabia is not allowed to participate in the country's development. Quite contrary in Zimbabwe, it's not that we are not allowed to participate in the country's development at all; our position as women is still considered that of second class citizens. Alone the President of Zimbabwe: Robert Gabriel Mugabe has a very low opinion of Zimbabwean women generally. On several occasions he has openly spoken without shame of women as not to be equal to men by whatever standards! Such messages are opium to the general populations of Zimbabwe as well as Africa. Such messages defeat women emotionally, when someone of a position of a president tell the growing youth that women are less than men: they take that on board as true and uphold that message as valid. We shall forever remain struggling socially economically and otherwise because opportunities are wholly not available for our younger female gender generation: women as the cornerstones, the rock of every family, community and the nation. In a nutshell we shall remain backward in development terms. We shall continue to admire and envy development in other countries forever!
There are societies to date who will send boy-children to school in favour of girl-children. For any meaningful development to take place we need educated women to develop their communities and uplift families from poverty. There will never be any meaningful development without adequate education for our girls and young women.
Gender equity also means looking after our children and respect for the growing children. Girl-children are always given the worst form of treatment in homes than boys. When we girls grow up we do not have our self-esteem, we grow up struggling to be heard, or seen as human beings in the first place. We enjoy being a woman when there are negotiations for marriage. The girl will be "sold" to the man she is marrying. At this home she does not have a full status of belonging to the home until she proves herself: working hard, considering herself last to all members of the family she is married to. How painful!
A good African woman is a woman who is smiling all the time: A woman who laughs and who is kind to all. Can that be possible? Is the society not asking too much from a woman? A woman is not supposed to have feelings at all: Feelings belong to the man and not the woman. A woman who expresses some feeling is a "troublesome" woman and must be corporally punished. Umfazi ongalaleliyo uyatshaywa, kumele atshaywe! That is the rhythm and grammar in most homes. Femicides and girlicides are common in our societies: read our social media and you find horror stories of fatally battered women and girl children: those rebels who wanted and demanded change in their lives got killed in cold-blood. There are women after all. Their death is of no significance at all.
We need to start by condemning men that abuse children. Those women who conceal and protect paedophiles verbally or otherwise, should be condemned and criminalized by law. Parents who send girl-children to early marriages should be punished by law: severe punishment should be meted to them to send a message to all and sundry that we cannot tolerate criminal practices in any form.
Our fight dear Nimi should start fighting women who fail other women and young girls in our Zimbabwe societies. They should know that there is a "place in hell" especially made for those women, twisted women who make life of progressive women who are fighting for the good of our girl-children difficult. We need to look at some of our traditions that hinder progress in our fight for the emancipation of women and girl-children: lobola is one of them!
Let's emphasize education to our girl-children, only an educated woman will know her rights that are enshrined in the UN conventions and many other conventions that promote the rights of women and girl children. Mothers should give their daughters the best education they should get first and not the "best" husband she can get before education to empower herself. What empowerment has a girl without academic education offer in any marriage? There is nothing as sickening as realizing in a mother that she is actually looking for a potential man to marry her daughter off. Did we not get it from our parents that when you have adequate education you are confident enough to go into any marriage?
Dear Nimi we have a long way to go as you can see. We should never give up the fight: fighting for women's emancipation is a noble cause that can never be casually abandoned. Women's emancipation will not be given to us but we must fight to get it by all means possible: our girl-children will not forgive us if we gave up the fight now. Some foundation must be laid by us so that our girl-children do not start from scratch!
We need to teach our societies to respect women regardless of whether she is married or not married. Respect cannot be determined by man in a woman's life. This notion is wholly outdated (Ko imi munonzi amai ani?) We cannot afford this overly backward attitude to unmarried women. Those women have brought up children single-handedly: they deserve respect. Some children from single headed parenthood have done exceptionally well in their career lives. We see failed children from solid family institutions and we wonder then: where did it go wrong! The society already sentenced and labelled fatherless children as future criminals and alcohol misuse and drug traffickers!
Single women should resist pressure from friends and relatives to get married. Those single women too should learn to respect their decision to remain so without any pressure to get pseudo respect: respect because there is then a man who defines respect in a woman's life: how silly! As you can see now dear Nimi, it's those nitty gritty issues that need to be ironed out and bring awareness to our communities that gender equity is here to stay. We demand respect some of us because we have done well in our duties and responsibilities at home and in our career lives. Nobody will take that away from us.
Let's debate this dear Nimi Princewill: perhaps some few women will join us and we have a broader debating platform:
Source - Nomazulu Thata
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