The Sunday Mail
This and That – With Soko Wezhira
Today is International Women’s Day, a time when some of us (who are referred to as feminists), can be true feminists without even feeling a twinge of remorse.
Why should we feel remorse for celebrating women? Why should women like Soko Wezhira apologise for being women? Why should we apologise for saying we are tired of being relegated and are ready to rise to the top? This is our day and as such we will shout it from the mountain tops so that the world can know.
The women are ready to rise and occupy their spaces right there alongside the men where they belong.
Lest someone accuse Soko Wezhira of being naughty and loudmouthed. Lest someone accuse her of being a bitter, single woman who wants to spread her bitterness to all and sundry. There has been a tendency in this country to label anyone and everyone who makes noise about women’s issues a troublesome person.
The minute some people hear the term gender or emancipation, it means there are efforts being made to make women some unmanageable and ungovernable lot. Wonder why these people called women have turned to a manageable and governable lot when they are running households, managing financial affairs and running companies and countries all over the world.
Women across the world have made the mark economically, politically and socially. Just look around you today and see how women have advanced themselves economically and socially.
We have females who have made it as top sports people. We have top female bankers. We have women in media. We have women in the judiciary. We have women executives. We have women leading churches. Women are flying aeroplanes. Women are sailing ships. Women can be anything and everything they want to be.
International Women’s Day presents to the whole world and Zimbabwe specifically with an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of women while calling for greater equality. This year the global theme is “Make It happen”, which encourages effective action for advancing and recognising women. Zimbabwe is also looking at Beijing 20 + alongside this theme since it is now 20 years after the world met to discuss equality in Beijing.
How far have we come since then?
How well have we handled the freedoms that have come along the women’s way, if any, since Beijing and several other instruments that have followed, all to do with women’s emancipation? Truth be told, there have been some strides and today the way a girl is viewed is much improved compared to the past where a girl was just good for one thing only – marriage. They did not really have to attain an education.
The government put in place policies that put girls and boys at par and this saw the numbers of girls getting an education going up.
But we still have pockets of communities that are still marrying off female children. They are literally selling their girls to rapists because marriage and girls/children are not words that synonymously run together.
We cannot afford to celebrate fully until this evil of child marriage is nipped in the bud. Until all female children are accorded the same opportunities regarding education, then we celebrate just a little bit.
We have another growing evil; that of men who are raping little girls. Some go on to kill them afterwards. According to the police, rape is on the increase and most of the time it is perpetrated by people that are known to the children and their families. Until the society becomes safe for our female children to grow up without the threat of sexual abuse hanging over them, then our celebrations will be muted.
The other evil of course is one that is right there in the home. Today the home is no longer the safe haven it used to be because some homes have become war zones where women are murdered by their own partners and spouses.
Last year the majority of murder cases were a result of domestic violence. Women lost their lives in the home, at the hands of those that should have loved them.
Some got infected with diseases which their men went out and got and delivered to them.
Others had to take men they live with to court for maintenance to try and get them to look after them and the children. Now, till such things are addressed, women cannot fully celebrate.
Till Soko Wezhira and her fellow sisters can participate fully in the economy – taking up farms and mines and other ventures that have been opened up – then the celebrations will be muted.
But women have to rise up and take up these opportunities. Where opportunities are denied them, by being equal to the task and qualified and demanding their spaces, then women can occupy the spaces that await them.
Yes, some will say here they go again, wanting things on a platter. But Soko Wezhira says why not? Women deserve everything good too.
Like the men, they also fought for the freedom of this country in various ways. Biology and gender roles should not stop them from enjoying.
Thus as we celebrate, Soko would like to challenge the women to demand their fair share in land, mining rights, business opportunities, housing stands, loans and everything else. The time is now.
Some people have blamed the women’s movement and strides made to uplift women for the rise in domestic violence and divorce saying women may have taken equality a bit too far. I do not know if some have.
Maybe they have. It is a fact that some men, due to the patriarchal nature of our society, are also struggling to cope with women who spend the whole day out of the home working just like them or even more, who may earn even more, who may be big directors. So since we are all coping with change and the reality that dynamics have shifted and a girl growing up today is different from the one who grew up 60 years ago, why not come to a meeting point where we realise that both men and women are important and one sex cannot go at it alone.
There should be loving and not hating. There should be celebrations and not murders. Women are responsible for the lives of each and every one of us. Here is to celebrating those important beings called women.
Happy International Women’s Day Zimbabwe.
