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#ME-TOO movement in Zimbabwe will be supported by Zimbabwe men!

08 Mar 2018 at 19:33hrs | Views
Fourth letter to the women of Zimbabwe

I wish you a happy women's day to you all my fellow Zimbabweans wherever you may be: kumativi mana enyika. There are several areas we need to celebrate our international women's day 2018 in style. I read the social media with disbelief: the women's Manifesto is unrolling in Zimbabwe. That is a great success to us women. Whoever started this dream, I say Kudos to you all women who started this very important cause. I have insisted on having one for about 4 years down the line. I am excited that some women up there have taken the challenge. My argument was that most countries in the southern cone of Africa have "women's manifesto" in document form, tangible document and its implementation. Ghana, Kenya. South Africa, even Zambia has their women's manifesto executed and pencilled by women. This simply means they own the document. That the Speaker of Parliament: Advocate Mudenda has officially set the ball rolling for a Zimbabwe Women's Manifesto is a great cause for celebration women's day 2018. Again Kudos to you out there, you are great!

Another cause for celebration dear ladies and girls: Not even two days ago we read from the social media that those men who abuse babies and small children will be given life sentences. I had hoped for a capital punishment myself: however, I respect this judgement still because it is harsh enough. The good judge said: "Those men with evil intentions to cause harm to babies and small children because they were told by illicit Ngangas/Nyanga/Zangoma about the riches one gets by having sexual intercourse with babies: (virgins) or the disease AIDS will come out of the man and the HIV/AIDS disease flows with semen on to the girl-babies!" The wicked man will be clean of disease! These are our serious national problems. We celebrate, however, the way the police deal with such wicked men when they are caught. Whoever is caught in Zimbabwe sexually abusing babies and little girls even any under-aged children- boys or girls, they feel the heavy hand of the law, the sentence is heavy: life sentence. This is a room to celebrate the work done by our police force: thank you for the good work and again thank you our judiciary system that has affected life sentences to all men who sexually abuse children of all ages. Kudos to the justice system and the police ZRP.

Now that the women's manifesto is now rolling for the good of our women and girl-children, it is of fundamental importance for the #ME-TOO Movement to spark parallel with the women's manifesto: we join global women in this plight for women dignity and justice. We cannot afford to remain behind and say: "it's very western" Kulapho esiphambanisa khona. This ME-TOO Movement can cleanse Zimbabwe if done collectively by women who are affected by this scourge. I would think that if we started the #ME-TOO Movement in Zimbabwe our men folk will be on our side, will encourage us to go ahead to name and shame those men who suffer from inferiority complex: are not decent enough to ask women decently for any sexual confrontation. We know how uneven sexual encounters are in Zimbabwe. Just to get employment a woman has to lift her skirt for those sexual pleasures.

There is one section of women who are suffering silently. It is those young women who work as domestic workers in those "posh homes". The situation or the plight of domestic servants is now dire. There is some crudeness of life that can only have been experienced by a domestic worker in Zimbabwe. To say that they are workers is a scam, a joke and very untrue: domestic workers are slaves in Zimbabwe homes. Domestic service should just be scraped from the labour services in Zimbabwe. The reason being that we cannot keep some citizens as slaves in our homes! Here I give most households a zero sum, please do not keep slaves in your posh homes. This will be a topic for another day. Digging deep inside the lives of domestic servants will spoil the other good things women have scored so far. I am however not pushing it under the carpet. We shall petition Mrs. Auxiliary Mnangagwa to say something about the domestic servants in middle-class-homes.

Another point we give gratitude to: our men generally are getting emancipated by the day, (my strong feeling and perception) evidenced by their response to most painfully issues regarding the women's issues on social media. When Mrs. Tsvangirai lost her husband: Richard Morgan and was harassed in the social media by her in-laws, several men came to her rescue, albeit on social media. Our men nowadays understand our disprivileged positions in marriages, or they empathize with us women: how most of us women feel down-trodden when we are in such heart-breaking situations as was the case with Mrs. Tsvangirai. We must celebrate this gesture from our men: let's not take it for granted. Women's liberation, women's rights in marriages and families is not at all an overnight thing, but a long process, a revolutionary process.

We evidently see this process unfolding; most men are not misogynistic as we want to think them to be. Most of them they have read tomes of books and works of international authors, reading about gender parity: gender-equality at work and at home. There is a lot information on social media accessible to almost 90% of the population. Those men have seen their sisters and mothers leaving their marriages of years with nothing but a suitcase full of clothes, that woman will be lucky if she took a child with her, when separation or a bereavement of a husband in the home. Those men experience femicide in their homes and families: a sister, or a mother or an auntie would have been murdered cold blood! Those men will not sit, watch and wait but act and react. This is where empathy comes in male as they might be.

These are some areas we need to work on as women. When we see one woman doing good for the family, clan, community or national please we must learn to applause their work. By so doing we shall have acknowledged the good they may have done and it encourages them to do more. Let's not compete unnecessary but emotionally assist one another for the common good of all women. I take an example of the work Mrs Auxilia Mnangagwa is doing. She is doing good work I must admit. She may be campaigning for Zanu PF but it is important to see this as a national gesture to emulate from her. We need to separate Auxilia and Emmerson her husband and we appreciate her as an individual Auxilia. We should applaud the work she is doing: she is down to Earth, very humble; we have seen her making tea for the villagers kneeling down to serve the men-folk who genuinely appreciated those gestures and moments. There is nothing better in life as to break bread together, the way we all saw Auxilia did.

Another area we still need to work on as Zimbabwe women to stand up for our rights in homes especially. Those women's rights belong to us and not to the men. Let's find our voice in the midst of chaos. It is not the right of the men to tell us we are good or bad but that we should tell ourselves so. Give a thought, a serious thought if a man manipulates you as a woman to crush other women who they think is a threat to the family and clan and community and societies. Let's give an ear to this woman who seems to be shouting on top of her voice because she thinks she is not heard. Those whistle blowers: "Imguwe" they give shrills, a sign that something is not right, "you are hiding an abomination, criminal acts done by the so-called father of the family or clan" The culture of silence is dangerous to our children and young women. When a man sexually abuses young under-aged children, please stand up for the vulnerable and not conceal the criminal acts by the man in the home. Yes we have read about it but it is not enough. We need more brave women out there who must expose criminals in those decent homes especially.

The reason why I say this #ME-TOO# Movement will succeed in Zimbabwe is because of the feed-back I got not so long ago: two months ago. All emails I received came from Zimbabwe men- 35 emails. The emails were a response to the article I wrote in reply to some Professor: When he asked to come to Germany for a visit I turned him down. Typical misogynistic men from my area where I come from: the Professor insulted. Those 35 emails from Zimbabwean asked: and some demanded to know the name of the Professor. I could feel the anger in those emails, it felt as if those men who wrote the feed-back emails were seriously let down by this man who is supposed to be educated enough to know how to communicate with not only women but anybody. I answered his emails to make sure he does not pester me again to come to Germany for a visit, leaving his dear wife at home in Bulawayo, going to see a woman he has never seen before:

"Make sure you are well resourced because Germany is very expensive country. Personally I don't entertain strangers or cold callers and married people in my home; it digs in too much in day to my day expenses. I would advise you to go elsewhere and not Germany. You will never enjoy your touristic coming to Germany and hoping to stay with someone you don't know or ever seen. I can smell disaster already. I should let you know this upfront. Regards: Nomazulu"

This Professor is called Professor REINFORD KHUMALO: once a Professor at NUST in Bulawayo, Here are the contents of his insults, just to refresh all who may have missed REINFORD KHUMALO's vomit emails

Nomazulu! You are a professional gossiper! Ms ugly! I don't have time for stupid people like you! Get lost! Ngangisithi ngiyaxoxa lawe but you are immoral and expect people any man who talks to you to express intimacy. It's typical of uggly women like you Nomazulu to think ukuthi bayakhonjiswa each time a man innocently talks to them. Please get away! Get lost Ms Ugly! I will not ready anything from you anymore. You are evil and ugly woman. Slanderer! Anything you send me, I will just delete. Regards, RK

Nomazulu, you are heap and ugly 200kg woman! I wouldn't want to associate with a liar like you. I was innocently conversing with you not knowing that you are a lier, gossiper. It's a serious combination if you are like that and ugly at the same time.

Bye! This is the last communication you will get from me. I am happily married to a beautiful intelligent woman. I do not need a heap next to me! I think Nomazulu is a very frustated woman expecting to be solicited by anyone who speaks to her. That is very cheap. I would not under any circumstances wish to have a relationship with you, Nomazulu. I am married and I am happy. That I have known now what kind of person you are, I would not want even to have a conversation with you. I wouldn't interpret, as you have done to my response, that you want a relationship with me. I am not a fool. I do not even know how you look like. In fact because of what you have done to me with, Noma, I would not ever (with emphasis ) wish to see you. You are not worthy seeing!

The crunch of the matter is that I turned down his advances: he was looking for a woman to marry, him a divorced man at the same time cohabiting with a sister-in-laws while outsourcing some lucrative import from Germany. Press fast forward: Three years down the line he is now married but still thinks he can free-journey to Germany for a jolly good time with a "desperado" "Mvhana yeku Diaspora" free and unlimited touristic for no dollars and Euros: the "desperate unmarried woman in Germany" will cover all expenses. My bone of contention is that you do not laps and start to insult a woman because she turned your love advances down-the-line. I will not be surprised if he claimed anything, some accusations from the blue just to prove something to prove HE IS THE MAN!!! This ME-TOO-Movement has started: I am naming and shaming Professor Reinford Khumalo for his illicit and shameful behaviour towards me.

I still have not given up on our men in Zimbabwe. We have good men out there for sure. I hasten to say: as a matter of fact, that I received 36 emails. The 36th email came from one of my male acquaintances and a friend of mine who lives in the UK. His name is Wilbert Mukori. He said something that still lingers in my mind to this day. He said to me, "I am not worried about those insults you got from that Zim-man. I know you will recover from the insults, but I worry about other women out there who cannot defend themselves when they receive those insults!"

Not very long; the 8th of Match will be a month globally celebrated by men and women equally. The shear use of word emancipation will be redundant in our vocabulary use because men and women will be equal before the law.

Share your own experience on social media!!!!! Bulawayo24, Zimeye, Nehanda Radio, New Zimbabwe.com. #ME-TOO-Movement is here to stay.

Source - Nomazulu Thata
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