Women - The world’s greatest untapped resource!?
on Emily Hopkins (Ghana), 28/Apr/2010 16:54, 34 days ago
The subject of this blog entry is simply‘Women’ as it has been something fairly high on my work and personal agenda for the past few months, this whole issue has been mulling over in my mind and is something I continue to feel challenged, passionate and frustrated about.Those who know me well will know that I am not a feminist by nature…in fact I think I have even been known to make comments which have enraged some slightly more feminist friends in the past!! But the plight of women here in Africa and indeed in all developing countries has come to be an issue which I am excited about and am trying to stay optimistic!!VSO Ghana has currently been undertaking a gender audit to see how it includes women in its programmes and to what extent women are being empowered and allowed to develop, I have played a part in this audit and worked with some amazingly inspiring women who are fighting hard for this corner. This combined with much of my work being focused around helping disabled women get involved and set up their own businesses has really contributed to my interest in this area.I have had the opportunity to see first hand how hard the average African woman works, no matter what level of society they are living in the woman is the power house of the family, she plays the role of mother, nurse, business woman, wife, cleaner, washer woman, cook, spiritual advisor and mediator to name just a few. Research has shown me that even in the most liberal of families, where the women is holding down a serious business job (perhaps even more demanding than her husbands) she is expected to come home from work and start preparing a home made supper with fresh ingredients while her husband rests. I have learnt that women are afraid of getting a‘top job’ as it will make them unattractive to potential husbands who do not want a woman who will earn anything like what they can earn. I have learnt that a man wants to marry a woman younger than him so she will not challenge him, in fact a good friend of mine who is a journalist here from Cameroon was so shocked when I told him my parents were the same age he couldn’t stop laughing!I have also learnt that attitudes are deep rooted, a research consultant presented some fairly alarming information about the lack of women in government here in Ghana suggested reasons such as women not voting for other women because they have been told women are incapable of leading, that a woman without a husband will never get voted in because she is unmarried there is something wrong with her and if a woman does have a husband she will bring disgrace on him if she is elected as she will be seen as the stronger party. What was perhaps more alarming than these research findings was the very man presenting the research with a PHD from the USA told us how he felt that women were not capable of dealing with the‘mudslinging’ involved in politics!!!You only have to look out of your window here in Africa and see a woman with a baby on her back selling oranges to know the ultimate working mother, these women work so hard. Moreover micro finance organizations in the developing world give over 80% of their services to women as it has been proved that women are far more trustworthy and industrious in making small businesses work than men.On a recent trip to the north I went with my housemate to a‘witches camp’, we travelled for hours to get to this remote place in a small village where women who are said to be ‘witches’ by their communities come to live, away from persecution. Before visiting the camp I read a number of reports, some very positive, some pretty horrific about this place, one report said that the women were prisoners here, another said that is was a sanctuary where these previously persecuted women could come and live in relative peace. A woman can be accused of being a witch because she has given birth to a disabled child or because her husband’s second wifeis not getting pregnant…it seemed to me that none of these so called ‘witches’ were actually practicing witch craft, just another way men are oppressing women. Before I went I was told that the church had now got involved with this project and women were learning various skills such as soap making to help them earn a little money, unfortunately when we went it seemed this help had somehow finished… come on church don’t leave a job half finished!Before we were allowed to see the camp we had to greet the chief and present him with kola nuts as is the tradition here, the chief could not speak English so we used a local girl (whom we had met whilst having lunch earlier) to translate. We entered to find a room full of men sat on the floor and as 3 women before them it was fairly intimidating, we were given chairs to sit on and asked what our business was there, after a few minutes of my over enthusiastic flattery we were allowed to enter as long as we were accompanied by the elders. So off we went to meet the women and see how they live. The was one of those slightly uncomfortable experiences for many reasons, most notably the presence of the elders (many of whom were drunk) who kept telling us not to ask the women questions and rather annoyingly the chief’s son who kept making a pass at our 16 year old interpreter who was clearly distressed. The women seemed happy enough in the camp and greeted us with smiles full of joy, but I couldn’t help feeling that these men who ‘allowed’ them to be there were complete creeps…it was either a businessopportunity to get cheap labour in the form of persecuted women or goodness knows what but we both came away feeling uncomfortable. Before we left we made sure that we told our 16 year old female interpreter to stay well away from those men and to tell her mother!So I conclude that women might possibly be the‘The world’s greatest untapped resource’, if more women can be educated and empowered to get formal jobs outside of petty trading the economy will develop, if more women can get involved in politics then they (given their proven honesty with loans) may help Africa with it’s deep rooted corruption, if more men can be educated about women as equal citizens then the all too common horror stories you hear about domestic violence and sexual harassment will be lessened .So what can we practically do….that one I’m still trying to figure out…but I want to help I really do…but like all things the starting place is our own hearts, we must check our own actions and opinions to make sure we are practicing what we preach, probably one of the biggest lessons I have learnt so far in Ghana, thatour thoughts and actions in the ‘small small’ things are vitally important in the bigger picture.