Long walk to gender equality

mothers.
Mothers have this self-sacrificing love that we cannot measure. This love is usually very consistent from day one and a mother is always there for her children for better or for worse.
She carries this burden of raising children and faces the wrath of the husband or society when the children do not turn up well.
Do statements such as “hauna kurairwa namai vako” (your mother did not teach you well) sound familiar?
I remember when a friend of my mine was graduating when I was still in first year, her father gave a speech of a proud father and consistently referred to her as “mwanangu” (my child).
When it was the mother’s turn she thanked her daughter for doing well because by graduating she had become her father’s daughter.
This statement was loaded with meaning especially after what her father had said.
What she meant was that had she fallen pregnant she would have become the mother’s child – mothers are blamed when the girl child disappoints.
Even if her words of caution are ignored and seen as a hindrance to enjoying life, she never gives up. Jesus Christ understood this relationship better as he told the women of Jerusalem not to weep for him but for themselves and their children. I must say the value of mothers is well understood and unquestionable. What appears questionable is the status of a woman in society.
If society agrees that women are responsible for bringing up children and shaping them into the great women and men of this world how then can they be second class citizens?
I am saying this because a fruit does not fall far away from the tree. So if women are lesser beings as society would want us to believe then we are all, men and women, lesser beings.
We acknowledge the strides that have been made in the fight for gender equality. We have pronouncements, declarations and legislation at national, regional and international level which have resulted in the improvement of the status of women.
There is still more to be done and I believe more work is on winning the mind. The battle is on little things that happen some of them so subtle but with far reaching consequences. These show that we still have a long road to gender equality.
Sometimes I tend to go along with people who say women can be their worst enemies when it comes to issue of gender disparities.
I think a lot of work has to be done to change mindsets that are entrenched with beliefs and attitudes that relegate the woman to the periphery.
The victory to gender equality begins with the woman herself. There is need to target the woman through deliberate education and awareness programmes to cause mindset transformation.
I once wrote an article on fashion in which I touched on how the man of the house dressed his wife to show off family wealth during the Victorian era.
In my research I discovered that women were supposed to be vulnerable and not expected to think but depend on the husband.
Those who read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen can recall Mrs Bennett; her sole purpose was to marry off her daughters.
Some of her daughters became occupied with marriage and grabbed any chance that came along. Back then in 1982, I used to find all this absurd. Now that I am older I wonder how all this was a product of society.
My favourite character was Elizabeth who was witty and believed that a woman is worth much more than external beauty and that she should be self defining. Well we are probably centuries after the writer tried to cause mindset transformation on the value of a woman.
Now that we are in the 21st Century have mindsets both of women and men changed accordingly.
How do we explain the phenomenon that seems to have taken root in our society of skin bleaching and all these enhancers by some sisters? On Wednesday, The Herald carried a feature that was borrowed from its sister paper Kwayedza on bust and butt enhancers. People might say it is a free country and we have a right to our bodies. Surely we all appreciate that. What disturbes me about this development are the reasons advanced for doing that.
Some women who spoke to the writer of that article said they were doing it to attract the attention of men.
It was said men like these big features and therefore this was a ticket to earn oneself a partner
Ladies does this really justify the risk and the unnatural changes to our bodies? I said to myself here we are making noise about gender equality yet we have women who do not believe in themselves.
They think their identity and worthiness comes from having a man in their life. I do not have anything against man and relationships. What I find sad is for a woman to make man the central theme of her life.