Unleash the potential in women

This is a powerful and highly loaded statement that I stumbled upon this week as I sought to establish the full meaning of the International Women’s Day that the whole world celebrated on Tuesday March 8.
This is a day women are supposed to be given much attention pertaining to the role they play as partners in socio-economic development.
I shall not attempt to unpack the introductory statement but I believe interpretations can be made to apply to specific situations.
It is, however, true to say that women can influence or even cause change in any sphere of development if given the opportunity.
They certainly can determine any outcomes if the environment allows them to.
The potential resident in a woman can not be over-emphasised.
You can understand the writer’s viewpoint I suppose.
Even the United Nations has acknowledged that no enduring solution to society’s most threatening social, economic and political problems can be found without the full participation, and the full empowerment of women.
This conclusion having obviously been reached after careful research and assessment of experiences globally.
The International Women’s Day – rightfully declared a holiday in some countries, presents an opportunity to pamper women hence we can even get carried way on the subject at hand without being apologetic at all.
One colleague remarked yesterday that women have this one day, leaving the remaining days on the calendar to men.
I chose not to dissect the possible meaning of this statement but instead remained focused on the rare opportunity to deliberate on women’s issues, which are rightfully every nation’s concern.
My colleague was just making a casual joke which I took in that light.
One assignment took me out of the office early yesterday morning and as such I missed the opportunity to become Editor of the Herald for a day as my boss sought to recognise the women in the newsroom.
He was obviously confident that we would have produced an excellent paper on time too, given most women’s attention to detail and the spirit of excellence that seem to drive us.
I await one such opportunity again Mr Editor sir!
I am always motivated by a profound statement made by one woman I have great respect for – Mrs Florence Ziumbe – president of the Professional Women Executives and Business Women’s Forum (Proweb), who, a few years ago said that women are God’s latest model in that after creating a woman the Almighty did not need to create anything again.
He was so satisfied with his latest work that He did not have to create another after that.
You can imagine how many of us want to have the latest model in terms of cars, cellphones, furniture, computers etc.
Therefore, being God’s latest model means women are always in fashion!
They will always be relevant to the well-being of humanity.
Although the temptation would be to look at the little progress made by women in many spheres, in this installment we choose to focus on that which women have done well and the potential that remains ready to be unleashed.
In Zimbabwe, Africa and the rest of the world women have made strides over the past decade to contribute their share in development and examples are there for all to see but the pace still remains very slow.
An AFP article yesterday caught my eye, it was about Nomura, a top Japanese securities firm, appointing its first ever female chief financial officer Junko Nakagawa.
This was described as a “a rare move in Japan, where senior business positions are almost exclusively filled by men”.
Times are changing!
In Zimbabwe’s corporate sector we have the likes of Busi Bango, Divine Dhlukula, Lynn Mukonoweshuro, Dr Charity Dhliwayo, Professor Hope Sadza, Charity Jinya, Dr Primrose Kurasha, Grace Muradzikwa, Willia Bonyonge, Adeline Sibanda, Jane Mutasa and many others as board members and chief executives.
We also have the likes of Faith Ntabeni-Bhebhe and Precious Chitapa running successful magazines while Blessing Magen’a publishes a weekly business newspaper. The lanscape was not like this a few decades ago.
Of course there is still so much ground to be covered. The challenges are well-documented, the strategies around them have been put forward, hence what remains is effective implementation.
The women themselves should keep pushing while the men should continue to lend their support for a brighter and better future for all of us.
Next year’s International Women’s day should be about testimonies of how far women will have gone on the political, economic and social ladder as opposed to a rehearsed and monotonous tabulation of problems.
Below is a piece done by the United Nations Public Affairs Department on the origins of the International Women’s Day:
“International Women’s Day (8 March) is an occasion marked by women’s groups around the world.
This date is also commemorated at the United Nations and is designated in many countries as a national holiday. When women on all continents, often divided by national boundaries and by ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic and political differences, come together to celebrate their Day, they can look back to a tradition that represents at least nine decades of struggle for equality, justice, peace and development.
International Women’s Day is the story of ordinary women as makers of history; it is rooted in the centuries-old struggle of women to participate in society on an equal footing with men.
In ancient Greece, Lysistrata initiated a sexual strike against men in order to end war; during the French Revolution, Parisian women calling for “liberty, equality, fraternity” marched on Versailles to demand women’s suffrage.
The idea of an International Women’s Day first arose at the turn of the century, which in the industrialised world was a period of expansion and turbulence, booming population growth and radical ideologies.
Following is a brief chronology of the most important events:
1909
In accordance with a declaration by the Socialist Party of America, the first National Woman’s Day was observed across the United States on 28 February.
Women continued to celebrate it on the last Sunday of that month through 1913.
1910
The Socialist International, meeting in Copenhagen, established a Women’s Day, international in character, to honour the movement for women’s rights and to assist in achieving universal suffrage for women.
The proposal was greeted with unanimous approval by the conference of over 100 women from 17 countries, which included the first three women elected to the Finnish parliament. No fixed date was selected for the observance.
1911
As a result of the decision taken at Copenhagen the previous year, International Women’s Day was marked for the first time (19 March) in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, where more than one million women and men attended rallies.
In addition to the right to vote and to hold public office, they demanded the right to work, to vocational training and to an end to discrimination on the job.
Less than a week later, on 25 March, the tragic Triangle Fire in New York City took the lives of more than 140 working girls, most of them Italian and Jewish immigrants.
This event had a significant impact on labour legislation in the United States, and the working conditions leading up to the disaster were invoked during subsequent observances of International Women’s Day.
1913-1914
As part of the peace movement brewing on the eve of World War I, Russian women observed their first International Women’s Day on the last Sunday in February 1913.
Elsewhere in Europe, on or around 8 March of the following year, women held rallies either to protest the war or to express solidarity with their sisters.
1917
With 2 million Russian soldiers dead in the war, Russian women again chose the last Sunday in February to strike for “bread and peace”.
Political leaders opposed the timing of the strike, but the women went on anyway.
The rest is history: Four days later the Czar was forced to abdicate and the provisional Government granted women the right to vote.
That historic Sunday fell on 23 February on the Julian calendar then in use in Russia, but on 8 March on the Gregorian calendar in use elsewhere.
Since those early years, International Women’s Day has assumed a new global dimension for women in developed and developing countries alike.
The growing international women’s movement, which has been strengthened by four global United Nations women’s conferences, has helped make the commemoration a rallying point for coordinated efforts to demand women’s rights and participation in the political and economic process.
Increasingly, International Women’s Day is a time to reflect on progress made, to call for change and to celebrate acts of courage and determination by ordinary women who have played an extraordinary role in the history of women’s rights.
The Role of the United Nations
Few causes promoted by the United Nations have generated more intense and widespread support than the campaign to promote and protect the equal rights of women.
The Charter of the United Nations, signed in San Francisco in 1945, was the first international agreement to proclaim gender equality as a fundamental human right.
Since then, the Organisation has helped create a historic legacy of internationally agreed strategies, standards, programmes and goals to advance the status of women worldwide.
Over the years, United Nations action for the advancement of women has taken four clear directions: promotion of legal measures; mobilisation of public opinion and international action; training and research, including the compilation of gender desegregated statistics; and direct assistance to disadvantaged groups.”
In God I Trust!
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