Women’s names on streets and institutions

Joyce Jenje Makwenda

The public space is restricted to women in many ways. Some of the restrictions are very obvious and some are very subtle. It has taken almost forever for women to enjoy the public space compared to their male counterparts.

While the calls for gender parity have been going on for a long time, we still have some ground to cover.

The streets and public institutions have for some time carried male names and not female ones.

It is really worrying that women have been excluded from these very public spaces where one does not have to knock the door to enter, but they access these spaces all the time – they are right there in our faces.

Therefore, the names on the streets and institutions are celebrated and unpacked almost every day and they are into almost everything that we do.

Charity Hodzi-Sibanda, a human rights and gender expert, is worried about how women are not featuring prominently in the public space.

She gives an explanation on why this is happening.

“Patriarchy: Actually I don’t think they sit down and do it intentionally; it’s become ingrained in them. Remember, these institutions that do the naming continue to be a Boys Club. It’s a Boy’s Club, you need to just go to any parastatal and you will see the hierarchy going down – its men. The boards – its men. So obviously if you ask me the name of the road, who do you think they will give. They will want to give a name of a man without even thinking so much as what has this man even done. There are some roads and you are, like, what has this person even done? Like you would expect roads with Ruth Chinamano, Sally Mugabe, Joice Mujuru, Margaret Dongo. There are so many women who have done so many things over the course of time  (for example Fay Chung and Hope Sadza) but it’s almost like nobody is taking time to think through.

It would be good to investigate how the naming process takes place, but I promise you those meetings probably have 99 percent men and the one woman who is in there is taking notes. It’s a serious challenge until we begin to engender all structures, including the State-owned enterprises. It is about training, awareness-raising. A lot of people still don’t understand what gender is; a lot of people still don’t understand why equality is important.”

Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Monica Mutsvangwa, who has been trying to sensitise people on the importance of naming roads and public institutions after eminent women who have contributed immensely to society, also agrees with the above assertion.

The minister has always been advocating women interests.

“Boards are important structures of any organisation, where strategic decisions are made, governance applied and risk overseen. It is therefore imperative to include women to ensure that their aspirations and those of their families are also taken care of.

“Gender diversity in boards and institutions helps to ensure that the entire consumer base is represented, and that can never be far from the truth for a nation like ours, where 52 percent of the population is made up of women. Aspirations of such a huge percentage of the populace cannot be wished away and therefore needs to be represented,” said Minister Mutsvangwa.

She said the inclusion of women in decision-making is a key condition for women empowerment.

Political and social commentator Dr Tafataona Mahoso traces the misogynistic behaviour to colonial mentality.

When I was growing up in Mbare, they were, if my memory serves me right, only two women whose names were used for prominent public spaces.

These were Barbara Tredgold and Amai Musodzi (Elizabeth Ayema). But these were drowned out by the innumerable names men – Hombasha, Ayema, Mzingeli, Ragkajani, Zata, Vito. I can go on and on. And this has continued to this day. We have very few institutions named after women. The name Mbuya Nehanda has been used on a street and maternity hospital.

One would think that with the role that women continue to play in society, there would be more streets and institutions named after them. I still ask the question: why don’t we have women on our streets and institutions?

Dr Rino Zhuwarara, the director of Zimbabwe Film and Television School of Southern Africa (ZIFTESSA), said there is a tendency of thinking that the struggle was male-driven.

“But this is a big issue; frankly, I never thought about it . . . I don’t think there is a good reason to give, other than to say decisions are made by males . . . we are not fully alive to what needs to be done and we have tended to look at the struggle as having been a male-driven struggle for freedom, right? Women, in terms of narratives, have tended to come in as either an afterthought or collateral, collateral kind of presence.”

Ms Margaret Dongo, a political and gender activist, opines that male chauvinism is inherent in our culture.

“The male chauvinism is instilled in our culture and they have made a lot of mistakes by excluding women. . . Sally Mugabe is late and no major road is named after Sally, but we prefer to give the names of foreign presidents,” she said. While patriarchy and colonialism have been seen as the main contributors to gender imbalances, they are those who feel women are their own worst enemies as they fail to use structures that are meant to empower them.

Some of the structures include the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, the Gender Commission and women’s organisations run by different NGO’s.  A number of people are not happy with how today’s women’s movement is championing the cause. According to Ms Margaret Dongo, these organisations are no longer genuine as they are now taken as lucrative businesses.

“You will find that they have money for salaries, travel allowances and posh cars, but they do not have money for projects or to finish projects despite the fact that the donor world has spent millions on women empowerment in every aspect, be it political, maternal health, domestic violence. They do not evaluate on the ground to see if they are making any progress. There is a syndicate or a cartel which speaks donor language and these are used to write reports and the donors just evaluate the written reports,” she said.

Solution needed

What we need now is a solution.

All stakeholders associated with this issue need to act and have women’s names on streets and institutions.  Great women from 1800 have traversed the political terrain and they have to be celebrated in that very public space.

Modjadji, Mbuya Nehanda, Lozikeyi, Ruth Chinamano, Muriel Rosin, Joana Nkomo, Sally Mugabe, Julia Zvobgo, Sonny Takawira, Diana Mitchell, Mai Murape and more.

All these women are politicians and activists in their own right and they did a lot for their country, but they still remain in the background.

For more information you can read some of the articles and books that I have written where I give biographies of the women politicians: Women Climb up ladder in Politics; Colonialism Stripped Women of Power in Zimbabwe; Women Politicians – Pre Colonial Era; and Women Politicians and Parliamentarians (2013), (2018). We use streets every day and see institutions all the time, so having names of women in these public spaces will normalise equality.  Charity Hodzi-Sibanda also added: “You know they say history has a long life and what that basically means is when we name something after someone and we honour that person, it’s on the lips of everyone, from the ordinary person on the streets to the child who is born.

Joyce Jenje-Makwenda is a researcher, archivist, author, producer and freelance journalist. She can be contacted on: [email protected] or [email protected]