GOOD day dear readers!
Last week I attended an all-stake holders meeting for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) where they were discussing the work they want to be doing with the commissions.
One of the key target commissions is the Gender commission.
I could not help, but laugh to myself as I thought of the irony considering that I had already ‘foretold’ about the need for the commissions in pushing the NGO and donor agendas.
The gender commission is also at the top of the charts on the agenda.
The main reason is that of the infiltration of Western ideologies which want to come in and destabilise our afro-centric manner of doing things.
Have you ever heard of the statement united we stand and divided we fall? The aim or the agenda of the NGOs and the donors is to destabilise our way of existence.
Please do not get me wrong.
I am all for equal opportunities and equal work for equal pay.
I also support the cause for women’s rights, however, I believe that this should be done from an Afro-centric perspective; Afro-centric meaning that we need solutions that are made by Africans for Africa.
The Gender commission is thus a target for Westernised solutions and thinking mechanisms.
One of the key pushes is that of 50:50 representations.
I would want that to happen, but I think that it should also be based on merit. It is not just about placing women for the sake of placing them in parliament.
It is also about ensuring that these women, who are placed are conversant with the real issues and are also educated.
This has been the constant struggle between African womanism and radical feminists.
Since most of the funding comes from Western nations, you will find that even the solutions and problems that are supposedly being addressed are Western.
I will give you an example.
When colonialism took place, the British were surprised to find African women already in position of power and influence.
The British were so used to their docile and unseen women that they rushed in to document false information about the status of women.
I am not saying that there were no harmful cultural practices back in the day. Of course there were, but the position of women in African society was dramatically exaggerated.
Right now we are faced with the same problem of feminists who want to come in and train women on the burden of the family and how women should put down their tools of giving birth because it is regarded as oppression.
Let us go back then to the drawing board.
In Africa, when a woman is giving birth, the process is regarded with high esteem and she receives assistance from her mother and other women in her community.
It is a role that we as women take pride in.
This is not meant to offend those who are childless.
However, now we are seeing that this role that we pride ourselves with is now being called barbaric and backward.
What is barbaric of wanting to nature a child?
Our Government is also very much in support of this role that they give maternity leave to women so that they also recover.
The funny part is that if you go to the USA there is no maternity leave.
They do not recognise this role of women and yet they call us barbaric.
A woman is not paid when she goes on maternity leave.
They say that to do so would be to discriminate men because men do not give birth.
I know, you must be laughing out loud right now at the Americans who want to always seem so sophisticated.
This is actually barbaric.
Just to make you see the connection with the Gender commission, the Commission needs to be careful of those who want to come in and distort our being African.
As women, we have a lot of power which might not always seem visible to the naked eye.
However, this does not mean that we are docile.
We need a Gender commission that is going to be realistic and which will take our way of living as its starting point.
Down and away with the kind of thinking, which wants to regularise homosexuality and emphasises on women marrying other women for purposes of getting rid of men.
We want our African men and we love them.
So please, as for the Gender commission, be careful of the influences that you will get about how women ought to live.
If you go to those Western nations you will find that they have very little representation of women in parliament yet in the so-called Barbaric Africa, Rwanda for example, women have more than 50 percent representation in parliament.
However, these women are also learned.
We need the Americans to start learning from us Zimbabweans on how to treat women and not just the big brother mentality.
Let us place Zimbabwean women and men on the map!