Worrying developments in education yet women`s advocates are strangely silent

4th May 2009

By Columnist

Among of the recent developments, the education ministry cancelled all ordinary level boarding schools, a move which can be seen as a strong setback when it comes to women emancipation.
And some people have taken advantage of this decision already by constructing brothels (madanguro) in the name of hostels…Now, you do know what goes on in hostels, don’t you? And yet the women’s emancipation advocates remain silent on these and related issues...
From the early 1990s, gender advocacy networks have been fighting for women’s inclusion in political leadership through preferential nomination. They have made some progress in this area, but women are still marginalized in some aspects. My concern today is with the education system as the only sustainable means of making women achieve emancipation.
At a post-Beijing women’s emancipation conference at the University of Dar es Salaam some time back, one contributor to the debate made the famously controversial remark: “We build walls for our wives and bridges for ourselves.”
This was one of the hottest debates I have ever participated in. The presenter was trying to make the point that women were naturally created as socially divisive creatures and men as unifiers. So the women have to be kept in confinement lest they divide the world and put it in a state of total chaos.
This meant that it would not be realistic to give them a chance of leading others at any level because they could end up plunging society into anarchy. He went to express his support for men’s domination of all decision making from the local to the national to the international levels so that women remained focused on domestic chores.
On the other hand, the ladies and some men who were supporting the motion heaped blame on men who create superficial conditions that encourage enslavement of the women. These conditions include taking advantage of the biological traits that make women as child bearers and caretakers for most of their productive life and men as the holders of the economic pillars that they then use to exploit and abuse women.
“Take for instance a female graduate in her early 20s who plans to have four children. This woman will spend not less than 10 years with at least one child below three years and the rest below 10 years. These are total dependants who demand not less than 16 hours daily from their mother.” This was a strong statement from Nyasolo, one of the motion supporters.
To concretise her point, Nyasolo continued, “The last child will spend an additional five years before he or she starts schooling. Even during primary education and up to the early teens, these children will need at least eight hours daily with their mother. This makes this woman stick to the eight-hour workday. By this time the man will be having overtime with his employer. Besides, this father will be socializing or carrying out consultancy, politics and other lobbying for income generation after the working hours.
This makes him earn merits for promotion from the employer, in addition to giving him more income from the other opportunities. The man also gains more in terms of the social influence that can help him raise his status for political gains in future.”
Speaking on men and their economic hegemony, Nyasolo put it this way: “All this time, the woman is struggling with the kids at home while the husband chases coins and gains influence on the streets.
The man also gets all the credit for the healthy children (cared for by his wife), he is also honoured by having all the children called after his name. Society has ensured that the child will, for instance, be called Magori Chacha (after the father) and not Magori Nyasolo (after the mother). Despite gathering all these honours through his wife, all the extra money he collects will still be his own!
The husband will apportion this money in ways that suit himself alone; mostly imposing stringent conditions on the wife including confining her to the home to supervise domestic chores that have no direct income generation or to handle income generation that is, again, controlled by the man.
This makes her depend on her husband all the time. In this way, the women, who raise children that become the workforce in future, find their work not valued by anybody and find themselves constantly on the losing end. Something has to be done in making women’s work of child-rearing valued,” concluded Nyasolo.
A debate? Yes. It was a debate. Sadly, it is still a debate even today. How far behind or ahead are we on the Beijing conference resolutions a decade and a half since this summit took place? Are the current intrinsic and extrinsic approaches appropriate? Have the gender networks around the country addressed Nyasolo’s call for “something to be done”? What is that “something”?
Through these gender networks, we now have the ministry responsible for gender issues, we see women getting preferential seats in the parliament and, consequently, positions in the cabinet. It was also through these networks that we observed the parliament pass a bill that makes it a crime for men to sexually harass women. Much has been done and we have to appreciate all this.
By the time these networks started and, specifically after the Beijing conference, they were very active and it was very rare to find a newspaper carrying no article on gender issues.
Today, however, things are changing. Newspapers have gone silent as if women have already lost their chains! To some young people terms and phrases like “Tanzania Gender Network Programme” “TGNP”, “Tanzania Media Women Association” TAMWA” are missing in their vocabularies.
Why this downturn? Is it because the networks are satisfied with what has happened through their struggle? If the answer is “yes” then there is something seriously wrong with these networks. The word “preferential” is discriminatory in itself. It creates in the minds of people a misconception that one is incapable and can only achieve something by being assisted by others. This is even worse because this preference is given by men! So women cannot do anything unless assisted by men!
“…something has to be done…” In the eyes of any keen person, we are still having even more challenges than before with women and we have not addressed the real matter technically.
Any sustainable programme starts with the education system because this is the one that moulds the mind of any person. Besides, since women are behind the existence of any population, we need to do something about their child-rearing role so that they have equal chance of participating in leadership.
If these networks are really working for women emancipation, there is a need for making gender studies an independent subject at all levels with specialized awards at tertiary levels. In this study, women have to learn the best practices that make someone succeed climbing the political ladder apart from having preferential nominations.
There is a need for having more boarding schools as an option for girls from primary schools after their 10th birthday. This is because on reach that age, girls get consumed with domestic works and this makes them lag behind academically. It is also at this stage that girls start maturing and become prone to sexual abuse and early pregnancies if no extra care is given.
Yet, despite this recongnition, one of the recent developments is that the education ministry cancelled all ordinary level boarding schools, a move which can be seen as a strong setback when it comes to women emancipation.
This is because some people have taken advantage of this decision already by constructing brothels (madanguro) in the name of hostels. (You do know what goes on in hostels, don’t you?) Even day scholars visit these brothels for commercial sex.
It is also widely appreciated that girls are the most affected by the shortcomings of our dala dala transportation to and from school with many of them reportedly falling for “Fataki” baits; leave alone bus conductors’ harassment. This makes them report to school and home late thus enduring the wrath of their teachers and parents respectively.
For sure, only a few girls will excel academically under these circumstances. But as the media is crying out loud every coming day and night on these matters, the gender networks remain suspiciously silent. Perhaps because they managed to make women secure preferential leadership positions and they now think that is sufficient enough.
If they were passionate enough, these advocacy networks would not only be opposing this directive by the ministry, they would also be campaigning to have more daycare centres as a way of emancipating the mother from domestic chores. The daycare centres can take care of children while the mothers are at work.
This way the ordinary mothers would be in a position to take on some extra duties to boost their status in the opportunities market. To this end, government would consider subsidising such centers as it does with primary education.
Women are men with wombs that keep all men and women that existed or still existing on the earth’s surface. The brain is the most delicate organ in the body but yet with the most powerful influence over the whole body’s physiology co-ordination. You remove the brain, you die. Had it not been the skull.

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN