This gender equality thing

BY ADEDURO MADESHOLA

The sustainable development goal 5 (SDG5) of gender equality comes with many controversies; from the elites and the dregs, resulting in misconceptions around the subject. As the world is becoming more aware of human rights, and how it concerns females, passing the message that “female right isn’t about their gender but about the fact that they are human and also a member of the society who shouldn’t be sidelined by the virtue of the difference in morphology and physiology”. Even though we cannot deny the rapid rate of increase in knowledge due to technology which puts more than enough information on our palms with just a click; we can access beyond the world around us, it is imperative that we understand the core of gender equality advocacy and not get the message twisted from the many jargons that we see and read on the internet.

Gender equality goes beyond who pays the bills at home or who bathes the kids. It is an abuse of the highest order to major gender equality only on what happens in marriage. The abuse of this knowledge is ruining/has ruined many homes in Africa and the seemingly “knowledgeable” women aren’t wise enough to escape the venom of the misconceptions around gender equality. I have read so many comments and articles on social media relating to gender equality and how the home front is supposed to be managed, most of which are caricatures of the gender equality goal. Who does what and who gives what in running the home affairs should simply be based on mutual understanding and in fact, with a sense of being humane, logical and reasonable. Even though this is not the subject matter of this article, this message can’t but come up when gender equality is discussed as many now want to successfully run their homes using the social media family-life template.

As it relates to the family, gender equality advocacy isn’t a goal to ruin home and disunite families, it is rather a goal to make every member of a family be as important as they really are; equally important and useful! Not until gender equality is practised at the family level (which is practically the backbone of society) that the discipline that is good for the girls is also good for the boys, the comfort that is healthy for the boys is also healthy for the girls, and the opportunities that the boys must have does not negate the girls, we would continue to be far from reaching the gender equality goal because every society is made up of families. Though as males and females we are different in our morphological and physiological make-up, we are all humans with emotion, intellect and will. We all crave excellence and our society isn’t supposed to limit us!

Also, this gender equality thing is neither a goal of competition nor a game to approve gender superiority as it’s been presumed by many. Rather, it is to admit that our competence isn’t determined by our sex.

What do we say of homes (particularly in Africa) that are now broken because the man of the house and/or in-laws blame the woman for not giving them a male child? Ironically, science tells us that the sperm from the man is what determines the sex of the gender of a baby. Women are XX chromosome carriers and can contribute only chromosome X during mating while men being XY chromosome carriers have a 50% chance of contributing either chromosome X or Y. When sperm contributes an X chromosome, it produces XX chromosomes (girl child) when the sperm contributes a Y chromosome, it produces XY chromosomes (male child). Unfortunately, the woman who carries the fetus in her womb is usually blamed. How many homes would have been rescued from chaos if we would all accept that the girl child is as important as the boy child and that girls aren’t limited in their achievement if given equal access to opportunities like their male counterparts?

I love to see gender equality advocacy as gender equity; giving every human equal rights and sharing available resources based on needs — education, good health care, the right to leadership, and the right to live as humans that we all are. This in itself isn’t to be demanded or fought for but in a situation where some sets of people are left out in a society where they belong, and even decisions that affect them are being made behind their backs because they are seen as “unfit”, it is then expedient that equity is demanded and a fair world is achieved.

For instance, human right demands that all children of school age are in school (access to quality education) unfortunately, statistics provides that about 60% of out-of-school children are girls. This implies that in many societies, girls’ education isn’t seen as important as boys’ education.

Gender equality advocacy says girl child education is as equally crucial as boy child education.

In agriculture, the federal ministry of agriculture and rural development reveals that “women account for 75% of the farming population in Nigeria”. World Economic Forum also recorded that “70% of Africa’s foods are grown by women but that women have few rights over the land they tend”.

Gender equality says do not deny women of their rights as you wouldn’t deny men.

What about women’s right to fully participate in politics, not just as it is in the law but also as it is viewed, practised and perceived?

Do I need to remind you here that the majority of the world’s poor are women? Yes. The reason isn’t far-fetched; gender inequality!

I must not forget to mention child marriage, many teenage girls are forced to marry while their male counterparts are either going to school or learning a skill. While serving as a youth corps member in my country, Nigeria, one of my students came to me and said: “Aunty help me, my father wants me to marry my cousin after secondary school but I want to further my education”. There was another case of a man who married her teenage daughter for N70,000. In most of these cases, the girls’ mothers have no say over their own daughters, in fact, the majority of the mothers were also victims of such. There are many life-threatening and destiny-truncating cases associated with gender inequality and we cannot afford to remain silent as this goal is being trivialized by some “social media” feminists and anti-gender equality advocates.

This article is not to inform you of what you already know, but to see to it that if not all of us, the majority of us are on the same page as we address the issue of gender inequality in this very last decade of the SDGs with the right mindset. Not neglecting the message for a mess and ruining the concept. The goal of gender equality isn’t just for the benefit of any gender but for the benefit of all. Not until we see it this way, we will keep moving in a cycle with a cap on the socioeconomic development of our nation.

Here is your role,

Treat a girl as fairly as you would treat a boy.

Give her a platform

Give her good education

Give her the skills

Open her to opportunities

Let it be that the undoing of any human is not associated with their sex!

Happy International Day of the Girl Child!

Madeshola writes from Abuja, Nigeria, via [email protected]