Every woman needs to do her part to end gender-based violence.
Why don't we rally behind our fellow women who run for elective office?
The world marked International Women’s Day on Friday. I read quite a number of articles on the progress made in empowering women. Some were optimistic, while others painted a bleak picture.
I was not too sure what to make of them seeing as it is true that gender-based violence, for instance, seems to be getting worse. That is, going by the number of women being killed by their partners.
What I do know is this, every woman needs to do her part, we can't wait for everything to be handed to us.
If it's education, for instance, then let's acquire as much of it as is possible within our means. It's always a pity to hear of girls dropping out of school because they got pregnant. Surely, sex can wait.
On matters representation, statistics indicate there are more women than there are men. Why then don't we rally behind our fellow women who run for elective office?
And for those women who do get to Parliament. Please do more than just building two latrines in the villages and erecting a banner indicating that the facilities were built by NGAAF. Or posing for photos while handing out cheap sanitary towels to schoolgirls.
While these are important in their own way, that is what the male legislators have been doing, well maybe not with sanitary pads but with awful plastics they call shoes.
If you do the same, how will we ever get sensible men to our side? We need to do better, rise above the mediocre.
Society is always quick to tell women how to live, dress, how many kids to give birth to, when to get married, etc. I think this is part of the problem as well.
We need to start writing our own scripts. Maybe some things will backfire on us, that is the cost of going against the norm. But then kowtowing to society has not gotten us very far, in my opinion.
And yes, while we do have this inborn nurturing instinct, it should not make us doormats. We should work with it to be our very best.
My point, basically, is let's do something, anything, in our own capacity.