When women score own goals

However, the well-known female journalist, who has been at the forefront in championing women’s cause, had no kind words for female politicians, whom she described as nothing more but “attention seekers”.

“Having read your article on the need to upflight women’s credentials so that they can assert and take up positions in the corridors of political power that have been handed to them on a silver platter, following the endorsement of their empowerment and recognition that were endorsed by the majority Zimbabweans through the ‘Yes’ vote, I think some of female politicians need to brand themselves.

“For a long time I have noticed that there is something seriously wrong with our female politicians when it comes to branding themselves to become saleable products to the electorate, regardless of their social or economical standing, as many would want to believe.

“More often than not, whenever I wanted to have an interview with a number of female politicians, I faced a lot of challenges such that I would end up going back to a male politician instead.
“Instead of warming up to the idea, considering how important the interview was to them in propping up their political CVs, some of the female politicians would expect you to grovel and do all sorts before they could grant you an interview.

“Others would even postpone the interview several times, and eventually cancel it, arguing that they were just too busy and could not come up with a proper schedule, where they could slot me.

“Some even behave as semi-gods where they would order you to talk to them in low-toned voice (as a sign of respect) before grudgingly granting you an interview where they would give you monosyllable answers.

“For me that attitude is telling of how ill-informed on how the media works and I am therefore not surprised that people don’t get to hear voices of female politicians in the paper before, during and after elections. It is not because they don’t have power points to share with the rest of the nation or are not articulate with issues, but they just think that they have got no business making themselves known to the very same people who should be voting for them,” she said.

As I read through her response, you can imagine my shock as I tried to understand why — if at all it was indeed true — female politicians were missing out on an opportunity to entice the electorate and understand them better through giving out interviews, and demystify the perception that women lack political clout.

But on the other hand, female politicians claim that the media have not been kind to them, and have instead, deliberately taken a position to regard them as bench warmers instead of being part of the integral government.

Some of them claim that although they have been holding senior positions in either their political parties or government, they are still regarded as novelties, not in touch with the politics on the ground and are nothing but mere political outsiders. Others have been labelled women of loose morals for daring to enter into politics, an arena, largely dominated by men, and therefore see no reason to forge any alliance with the media, lest they will get unnecessary attention at a time they should be moulding their political careers and forging ahead. They are arguing that it is for that reason that they see no value in seeking media attention and they would rather be concentrating in building their portfolios and rather let their projects speak for themselves.

Looking at all this, there is no doubt that there appears to be undeclared war between the two parties, a situation that doesn’t augur well in advancing women’s causes at a time when Zimbabwe is moving at phenomenal speed to join other countries towards gendered leadership, where both women and men can find strength in their biological and social differences and work towards national development.

Save for a few, if any, I believe journalists don’t conspire to stereotype, trivialise or ignore women as a way of keeping them from running for public office, nor do they make a deliberate attempt to denigrate women when they succeed.

What, however, needs to be done is to create a symbiotic relationship where female politicians should build relationships with the media, based on mutual trust, integrity and driven by passion to see each party winning from the association, and vice versa.

Instead of worrying about a perceived backlash they are likely to get from the media, both seasoned and aspiring female politicians should come out of their cocoons and engage the media on issues they want covered and explored as the nation prepares for harmonised elections. I keep saying we have astute female leaders in our midst, who have contributed immensely towards Zimbabwe’s development in the different facets of our social and economic arena.