In a country where women have been denied equality, fair share out of the world of work and impartial treatment in all social, economic and even political aspects, it is hard to think of bringing about real development and change.
Keeping these and other related facts revolving around women and girls in mind, The Ethiopian Herald had a stay with Misrak Kebede, who earned her BA and MA degrees in sociology and gender studies respectively from Addis Ababa University, to grasp a piece of information about the significance of mainstreaming gender issues.
She said, “Gender equality embodies ideas, values, and identities, allocates labor between different tasks, activities, domains to determine the distribution of resources as well as assigns authority and decision making power towards balanced and semi-balanced state of affairs.”
This means that gender inequalities are multi-dimensional and cannot be reduced to some single and universally agreed set of priorities following the sole effort of a given nation and its people as the matter itself demands the combined effort of all at national, regional, continental and even global level.”
As to Misrak, gender relationships are not internally cohesive. They contain contradictions and imbalances, particularly when there have been changes in the wider socioeconomic environment. The same could be said of any set of policies that seeks to improve women’s access to resources. Some may be more strategic than others, but all have transformation potential as long as the change in question is a genuine expansion of women’s choices, rather than a token gesture of paternalist benevolence.
As to her, women’s access to education may improve their capacity to sign their names on a document, but unless it also provides them with the synthetic capacity and courage to question unjust practices, its potential for change will be limited. Women’s access to paid work would also give them a greater sense of self-reliance and greater purchasing power, but if it is undertaken in conditions that erode their health and exploit their labor, its costs may outweigh its benefits. Women’s presence in the governance structures of society clearly carries the potential to change below the belt practices, but if the women in question are drawn from a narrow elite, if they have been invited rather than elected, and if they have no grassroots constituency to represent and answer to, their presence will be only a nominal one.
“Some 80 % of the population in Ethiopia resides in rural areas and women provide the majority of the agricultural labor. However, their contributions often go largely unrecognized and their fathers or husbands often restrict access to resources and community participation. Worse even, as studies show, one in three women experience physical, emotional or sexual violence and the majority of women have experienced female genital mutilation,” she added.
She further said that although the primary school enrollment rate of girls in Ethiopia has climbed high over the last few years, the majority are unable to transition to secondary and tertiary school due to distance, some security concerns and other related socioeconomic challenges.
As girls grow older, academic participation becomes increasingly difficult as it takes time away from essential income generating activities. The number of undergraduate university female students who drop out in the first year is not cushy, too. At the same time, female leadership at the university level is extremely low. To tackle all these challenges and better support the continued education of the next generation of female Ethiopian leaders, the government has to focus on improving women participation in all aspects of life, Misrak opined.
“Women often face different and more basic economic constraints than men, including less access to credit and limited market access. To support women’s ability to create businesses and secure their own livelihoods, the country needs to encourage financing for female-owned businesses through various financial institutions,” she added.
She further elucidated that gender equality is, first and foremost, a human right. A woman is entitled to live in dignity and in freedom from want and from fear. Empowering women is also an indispensable tool for advancing development and reducing poverty as empowered women contribute to the health and productivity of whole families and communities and to improved prospects for the next generation. Besides, Misrak said since women and girls are far less likely than men to be politically active and far more likely to be victims of domestic violence, ensuring equality in all circumstances is a timely measure to make a difference. The cognition of women to control their own fertility is also absolutely fundamental to their empowerment. When a woman is healthy, she can be more productive and is capable of passing a sound decision on limiting the number, timing and spacing of her children as well as making decisions regarding reproduction free of discrimination, coercion and violence.
In clear terms, and as the very principle stipulates down, she expound gender equality implies a society in which women and men enjoy the same opportunities, outcomes, rights and obligations in all spheres of life. Equality between men and women exists when both sexes are able to share every bit in the distribution of power and influence; have equal opportunities for financial independence through work or through setting up businesses; enjoy equal access to education and the opportunity to develop personal ambitions.
A pettifogging aspect of upgrading gender equality is the empowerment of women, with a focus on distinguishing and amending power imbalances and giving women more liberty to manage their own lives.
Misrak said, “Women empowerment is vital to sustainable development and the realization of human rights for all. The roles that men and women play in society are not biologically determined, but are socially determined, changeable as well as dynamic in their nature unless conservatively restricted among the society, with very limited degree.
Most importantly, political entities, social and legal institutions have to work to confidently guarantee women equality in basic legal and human rights, in access to or control of land or other resources, in employment and earning, and social and political participation, she said.
Even parents are expected to equally nurture their children of both genders. For instance, if parents view daughters as less likely to take paid work or earn market wages, they may be less inclined to invest in their education. Here, the very important point that needs to be well comprehended is that empowering women through education has to be prettily capitalized as education is one of the most important means of empowering women with the knowledge, skills and self-confidence necessary to participate fully in the qualifying summons.
“It is a way of looking at how social norms and power structures impact the lives and opportunities available to different groups of men and women. Understanding that men and women, boys and girls, experience poverty differently and face different barriers in accessing services, economic resources and political opportunities help target interventions. However, gender roles and relationships are not fixed; they evolve based on circumstance,” Misrak added.
She further said if women, who account for half the nation’s working-age population, do not achieve their full economic potential; the economy of the country will suffer. Not only is gender inequality is a pressing moral and social issue but also a critical economic challenge that has highly compromised the lives of all. Moreover, its prevailing aspect in education prevents progress in due course of overcoming poverty, underdevelopment and subsistence way of leading life.
Misrak exhorted her concern urging the government and the general society to move in unison if they would like to come up with a country with development and progress it deserves and a more peaceful and equitable nation. The potential sources of risk of internal conflict between/among citizens of the country at every corner have to get dried for good as they would exacerbate gender inequality.
BY MENGESHA AMARE
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD TUESDAY 26 DECEMBER 2023
