In a society with gender equality, girls and boys, men and women are accorded respect, human dignity, and fundamental freedoms and enjoy equal rights, opportunities and equal treatment. Women and men enjoy economic independence, receive equal pay for equal work and work of equal value. They lead a dignified life free from gender-based violence, and share the power of leadership and decision making equally.
The reality on the ground is, however, different. Across the world, research has shown women are under-represented in elective, nominative and appointive positions. Two-thirds of illiterate people are women, most of them living in the third world, and the pay gap between men and women was 22 per cent in 2009. Women account for an increasing population of the world’s poor and working poor, at about 70 per cent. A large proportion of women suffer domestic violence and sexual harassment at their place of work and in the hands of people they trust.
Let us face it, shall we?
Men generally enjoy a higher rate of employment, earn higher incomes, including gratuity and pension, and do less unpaid work. Men dominate decision-making, own almost all the land and other economic resources. In the political and leadership fields, they obtain, even usurp, hold and wield more power than women and lord it over them.
Gender inequalities have a negative impact on society. They are against fundamental human rights. After all, women are our mothers, sisters, wives, aunts, grandmothers. Inequalities erode the economy, result in the under-utilisation of talent and ignore the skills and contribution of women, which promote efficiency, effectiveness and inclusivity. They degrade, discourage and dehumanize women.
The 2010 Constitution came with a basket of goodies for gender equality, and women had a reason to smile.
Article 27(3) states, "Women and men have the right to equal treatment including the right to equal opportunities in political, economic, cultural and social spheres."
Article 27(8) provides that the state shall take legislative and other measures to implement the prnciple that no more than two-thirds of the members of elective and appointive bodies shall be of the same gender.’ But lo and behold, no legislative or other measures have been taken to date to implement the principle! But why two-thirds in the first place?
Equality demands not less than a half. In fact, women are 52 per cent of the population, and have a legitimate right to ask for more than even a half.
There is much hype about the empowerment of women. However, what is observable, particularly among women in rural areas and in informal settlements in cities, is disempowerment. The indicators of this negative trait are all too self-evident: The lack of confidence and initiative, low self-esteem, apathy and hopelessness, fear and voicelessness. Disempowerment also manifests itself in the inability to take charge of one’s own destiny, non-participation in decision-making, unemployment and dependency, all conspiring to relegate women to the margins of the social fabric, leading to despair and exclusion.
There are hindrances to women’s prospects for employment and promotion in the formal sector, even for women with good academic credentials. There is rampant bias among managers, who are usually male; the absence of female role models doesn’t help in terms of someone to emulate; motherhood and childcare pull them down; and the virtues of courage, confidence and aspirations to counter male dominance, control, and sense of entitlement seem to be present in fewer women.
Any progress towards gender equality has to dismantle traditional cultural practices such as female genital mutilation, child marriage, wife inheritance, gender-based violence, and in patriarchal societies the practice of primogeniture in which the first son inherits everything. The adoration of the first son, as mwana wa mberi, among the Abaluya or angafa among the Boorana, has no place in gender responsive modern societies.
Women often have to grapple with the sour grapes of separation, divorce or widowhood, all having a greater negative impact on them than on men. In some of these cases, they may be kicked out of their matrimonial homes, denied access to properties held by their husbands and be left out in the cold even in a situation where their marriages are blessed with many children, ignoring their crucial roles in building the wealth that the families have survived and thrived on.
The journey on the bumpy and slippery road to power, for women, is like climbing a greasy pole. In the 2013 general election, only 16 out of 290 were elected to the National Assembly. Out of the 1,450 ward representatives, only 82 women were elected. No woman was elected governor or senator. Men will not give them power on a silver platter: Not any time soon. They have to go for the elective positions of leadership and wrestle power out of the hands of stubborn and recalcitrant men.
Hukka Wario is an Independent Researcher and Writer
and a co- author of Keys to English Grammar, Published by Moran(EA) Publishers Ltd, Kenya
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