Times Of Swaziland: DITCH ‘BUILDING CAPACITY OF WOMEN’ PHRASE

DITCH ‘BUILDING CAPACITY OF WOMEN’ PHRASE
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Phila  Sibiya on 27/08/2020 06:39:00


One of the buzz phrases that are bandied about during this time is the ‘need
to build the capacity of women’. While well-intentioned, this phrase comes
across as patronising and condescending of the abilities of women.
It unconsciously affirms the notion that women are inferior and accordingly
requires some special intervention to enable us to be developed to the same
level as those who currently hold power, who seemingly were born all wise and
able.
The justification for the generous intervention by the superior to place us in a
perpetual state of development is that ‘women who are given responsibilities
of leadership before they are ready, get destroyed’.
This argument undermines the reality that a common humanity of both men and
women supersedes any reproductive differences that might exist. Women were not
born with mental defects that require us to first undergo a special development
support programme.
Women are human beings, born with the capacity to acquire skills, knowledge and
ultimately competence in the same manner as those who currently have access, do.
Nepotism
While there may be examples where women have been collaborative in their
appointments to undeserved positions, it must be noted that such occurrences,
including tokenism and nepotism, exist regardless of ethnicity and sex.
The argument that we should not lead for our own protection is an exploitation
of the phenomena to justify the exclusion of women from positions of power and
authority.
World history is filled with heroic women leaders and achievers. Africa has
examples of women leadership that spans centuries. The traditional leader in the
Balobedu community has been a woman since the 16th century with succession being
matrilineal.
On August 9, we commemorated the mass of women who demonstrated against pass
laws and on August 17, we commemorated the murder of Ruth First by the apartheid
regime.
Despite the plethora of competence, women still bear the brunt of poverty,
inequality and unemployment and still occupy the lower strata of the employment
space. Domestic work and child-rearing remain gendered and naturalised.
According to StatsSA (2018), the unemployment rate for women is higher than that
of men, and women are less likely to participate in the labour market.
Population
Women are the most vulnerable. The 2017 BWASA Women in leadership census states;
“In a country where women comprise 51 per cent of the population, only 20.7
per cent of directors and 29.4 per cent of executive managers are women. At the
very top leadership level, the number is significantly lower with women holding
only 11.8 per cent of chairpersons’ positions.”
This poor show of women in the employment space is not indicative of the
capacity of women, but rather a reflection of patriarchal power structures and
the difficulty of breaking them.
Patriarchy is a constructed system of gender hierarchies and identities, which
reinforces inequality, and particularly the sub-ordination of women to men. It
is defined as ‘a system for maintaining class, gender, racial, and
heterosexual privilege and the status quo of power’.
Gender historian Gerda Lerner states that ‘patriarchy manifests and
institutionalises the domination of men over women and children within the
family and extends its influence over the public sphere in a society’.
Accordingly, the determination of the acquisition of power has little to do with
natural abilities. The power elite, which is predominantly male and wealthy, is
bound by an economic system, resources, mutual interests, and social networks
that are near impossible to penetrate. Those outside of the inner circle have
great difficulty accessing it, with gender being no exception.
The advancement of gender equity therefore requires a fundamental restructuring
of patriarchal power relations, including an acknowledgement of the structural
linkages between class, race and gender.
Substantive
This requires a substantive shift in the deeper dimensions of societal norms and
sense of identities that ensures that all are valued and respected equally and
are provided with the full range of opportunities and benefits to reach the same
finish line, regardless of gender.
Deliberate interventions to enforce access to and equitable participation of
women in education, society, the economy and politically must be increased.
Preferential access for women by setting minimum thresholds to ensure that women
occupy all spaces in society cannot be equated with the phrase ‘building the
capacity of women’.
The latter places the fault with women, whereas the former correctly places the
fault with structural power relations. Until we get the focus right, gender
equity will remain an aspirational dream.