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In conclusion, I think we can safely say that men and women are different and that inequality will never go away, but ‘difference’ and ‘superiority’ are two very different things. We are not equal but we are of equivalent worth. What we have to do is learn to appreciate these differences, both equality and ability-wise, and not despise them. We have got to reach a stage where we can accept the superiority of different genders in different areas. Think of it as electronics and electricity. We would have no use for electronics without electricity but we would also have no need for electricity without electronics. No one gender is superior or equal to the other but we do need both if we are ever to have a productive society. Personally, I feel that something needs to change. Fact: Affirmative action undermines the ability of women to think, relate, and act on par with their male counterparts but Fact: Women have for too long been degraded and we need to come up with some sort of action to combat the problems this has left on our society. So what do we do? One suggestion is financial backing. Although this would be expensive in comparison to affirmative action, its benefits would be a lot more concrete. If we could concentrate more on providing funding for girls at all stages of their education then we would still be able to ensure that they got the adequate ‘push’ they need in today’s unequally yoked world. This would also begin to remove the mentality that women in certain posts are less qualified for them in comparison to their male counterparts because these women wouldn’t just have the posts ‘thrown’ at them. They would have to struggle for them on an equal footing with men – their financial backing being their assurance of an equal footing.
Perhaps another idea to look at in relation to education and gender is textbooks. The fact is, until recently, most textbooks referred to males as the doctors, lawyers and businessmen whereas the roles of women were left strictly for the knitting and home-making segment of occupation. In this case, girl’s education was self-defeating as the very education that was meant to emancipate them may have served to give women an inferiority complex. As they were receiving education, they were given the false impression that women belong strictly to certain sectors of society. Minute as this problem may seem, many women were forced to grow up with this idea of inadequacy; and it is this idea that has robbed our countries of very many female physicists, lawyers, surgeons, pediatricians and who knows, maybe even presidents.
Another thing that has to be looked at is the way gender difference has only recently become a matter of importance and even now isn’t given all the attention it deserves here in Africa. A reason for this is the fact that in Africa, there are very many pressing, life-and-death issues and unfortunately gender inequality takes the back seat in all our turmoil. But when we look at it closely, why is this only now a pressing matter? Why didn’t women rebel years ago? They were undoubtedly happy with the way things were, so what changed? The answer to this is influence. It began with colonisation but that was just the beginning. What colonisation did was open us to the outside world. It opened a door that can never really be closed. Because of it, we now have direct interaction with the world every single day. This interaction leads to sharing ideas and that is what we have now, new ideas. We came to the conclusion that gender inequality has always been a problem in our societies but it was not until people knew there was a different way of doing things that we could do something else.
But why exactly is gender difference such a great problem in Africa? Someone once said that Africans dislike change because we love to hold on to what is comfortable and reliable, as opposed to venturing out and trying new things. How true that is, I do not know, but it does shed some light on the plight we face in Africa. Is gender inequality more prevalent in African countries because we are less educated? If so, then wouldn’t education simply eliminate gender inequality? Regrettably, it isn’t that simple. Education goes a lot further than the four walls of a classroom. It includes everything we learn from our families, peers and even our eyes. In fact, the biggest impact on what we believe is not what we are told but what we see. It is one thing to tell a child that domestic violence is wrong, but if he goes home to the screams and pleading of his mother under his father’s brutal hand, what message does he get? We cannot expect others to change us, only we can change ourselves. All the teaching in the world could not erase what that boy saw at home and unless he makes a decision to turn his back on what many misinterpret as ‘tradition’ he will just become his father – enslaving some other poor woman to the bondage we call a ‘proper marriage’.
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Thomas Igeme
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