Gender in power, decision-making, media

Simbiso Marimbe Correspondent
WHILE Zimbabwe has recorded a gradual increase in the number of women in its political structures with the parliamentary quota system reserving 60 seats for women, they still occupy only 31 percent seats (women occupy 85 out of 270 seats).

The challenge for the newly-instituted Zimbabwe Gender Commission is to influence a surge towards the 50 percent representation target of the Sadc Gender Protocol.

Outside parliament there is needed to break the glass ceilings that prohibit women’s advancement in all sectors including, private, public and non-profit sectors.

There is a worrisome scarcity of women on parastatal boards, political party structures, in cabinet, and other public service positions. A most recent example is the zanu-pf Mashonaland East election that did not have a single female candidate for the party chairperson position. It would appear that women are restricted to the Women’s League positions. This is not peculiar to zanu-pf only, but it extends also to many other political parties in Zimbabwe.

Several professions remain dominated by men despite significant progress made by the education sector to ensure that women are trained in non-traditional professions such as engineering, law, medicine, among others.

The majority of women remain in the middle to lower levels of most professions resulting in company and organisational decisions being made by male bosses.

Consequently, gender pay gaps are worsened, forming a vicious cycle of power and profit share gender gaps. The ZGC is called upon to investigate the glass ceilings thoroughly and ensure that they are effectively broken to allow for the equal advancement of both women and men in all sectors.

Gender and the Media

The ZGC cameras must zoom on the media to ensure that gender stereotypes are challenged rather than perpetuated in and by the media. The current media content, sources of news and language of reportage is highly stereotypical and excludes women’s voices. The media have the power to influence public opinion and they have performed dismally in so far as promoting gender equality is concerned.

This applies to mainstream traditional media and new media, particularly social media.

Whereas online social media have been largely viewed as opening up a wide variety of global and local opportunities in many sectors, it has regrettably opened a floodgate of gender biased abuses. The ZGC may make itself more relevant if it takes on this challenge head on. Another key area of concern is the near absence of women media owners and a token number of female media managers in local media houses.

While acknowledging the existence of the Media Commission, this is an area they have not adequately addressed over the years- perhaps not their area of expertise. By the way, the ZGC may want to know that sexual harassment has reached endemic levels in Zimbabwe’s newsrooms, most of it going unreported due to fear of reprisals. I would also urge all the ZGC commissioners to read a 2013 survey report by Federation of African Media Women-Zimbabwe (FAMWZ) and the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ) titled, ‘Power Patriarchy and Gender Discrimination in Zimbabwean Newsrooms’, and help map a way forward.

However, this is not peculiar to newsrooms.

Zimbabwe has witnessed other forms of sexual harassment, particularly of women in public places. Shockingly, recent media reports revealed that even female legislators are being sexually harassed by their male counterparts-in Parliament! This should be a red flag for the ZGC.

Culture and Religion,

Socialisation

The above gender relations challenges are largely influenced by cultural, religious and social innuendos in our sub conscious that are implicit in our behaviour. This is where the ominous forced and early child marriages, paedophilia and other gender violations are rooted. It may be worthwhile for the ZGC to interrogate these with a view to seek lasting ways of dismantling and preventing the decadent elements from our cultural and religious practices. This suggests that the ZGC must focus most of its attention towards prevention efforts and rightly so because one of its constitutional mandates is to research and to give guidance to institutions into key gender matters.

Gender and Economic

Empowerment

One of the ways by which women have been structurally subordinated in society is to exclude them from gaining access to and control over resources. This has effectively kept women poor and as second class citizens. Despite Government efforts to include women in the national economy, the prevailing reality is that we are still counting numbers and not making women count in the economy. It is public knowledge that women occupy the lower rungs of the economy, particularly the informal sectors where they are simply kept busy by low income projects, while the high income sectors are still a privilege of men.

The Women’s Coalition and One, recently launched a campaign dubbed, ‘Poverty is Sexist’, arguing that women are still marginalised economically and hence they suffer the brunt of poverty more than men do. Indeed, the progress on integrating women in the mainstream economy is dead slow and interventions to address this are rather anecdotal and tokenistic. Examples include the so-called ‘women’s empowerment funds’ that are miniscule and only fit for backyard chicken rearing projects, home crafts and flea market stands. Efforts to include women in mining have only seen women becoming small-scale panners rather than high end miners.

It is high time women get real capital to venture into real business in terms of scale and profits. This is the area that has the potential to shift gender relations quite substantially and subsequently reduce some of the poverty related abuses outlined above. The ZGC could do the nation a great favour by influencing stakeholders to take a microscopic review of the current women’s economic empowerment efforts.

The Commission needs to keep in mind that decision making is very much central to economic empowerment. Those that are making decisions today are more likely to be controlling resources in their respective sectors than those that are not. Gender misconceptions is one last item for the ZGC’s agenda is that they should educate the nation that gender is not ‘women’.

The commission must correct that misconception because it is causing resistance and deterring men from fully supporting the gender equality cause. Both young and old Zimbabweans must be aware that gender is in essence about the relationship between women and men.

It is about equality, diversity and inclusivity.

It is about making both women and men count. It is not about women wanting extra care, pay, concern, attention, but it is about the need for equality. So, the success or failure of the ZGC shall be measured by their scores on the above as well as Zimbabwe’s performance on the Sustainable Development Goal number 5 (Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls); the targets set for individual countries under the Sadc Protocol on Gender and Development; the Beijing Platform for Action; the UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women, CEDAW; the Zimbabwe National Gender Policy among other national, regional, and international instruments.

These also present both resources for the ZGC to draw from and guidelines on national targets.

If at all this commission is going to be outstanding it should be able to score highly on some of the above outlined challenges.

But perhaps, before the commissioners take oath of office, they may consider taking the Implicit Association (IAT) Test that measures attitudes and beliefs that people may be unwilling or unable to report, to ensure that they are not going to execute their duties with a gender bias. For them the tasks ahead, are nothing but colossal.