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By Priscilla Mangwana

When our male counterparts push for gender parity, they are not doing women a favour. They are only observing the right of fellow human beings to be given the treatment they deserve.

There is a rhetoric that says, “Women rights are human rights”. This means that whenever women are not given their equity, there is an abuse of human rights. The rest of the world should show as much outrage as they show when there is to torture, unlawful deprivation of liberty and all other common abuses.

When we talk of gender parity we are not saying that cultural and customary roles should not be observed where they bring order. Of course they should. All we are saying is that these should be applied to the particular social context. However when it comes to professional work, education and the right to be treated the same way, the girl child should be treated the same way as the boy child.

Priscilla Mangwana

If there is only money to send one child to school where there are 2, it shouldn’t be a default decision that the girl child that should give way to the boy. The parent should agonise and come to the same solution they would have come to if these were two male children. There should be equal opportunities accorded to the children regardless of their gender.

We are pleased that women now comprise 30% of ambassadors for Zimbabwe and 56% of all civil servants. This is a step in the right direction but more needs to be done, such as correction of the fact that women comprise of 20% of cabinet ministers.

The failure to embrace gender parity is blamed for the collapse of many a Diaspora marriage. The Zimbabwean man who lacks self-confidence feels challenged by an economically empowered woman. The man fails to come to terms with the independent thinking woman who is not doing anything bad except asserting her rights.

This is then called all sorts of infantilising terms such as “disobedience” Really? Suddenly because you paid lobola you treat me as one of our children? Disobedience indicates that one is failing to comply. Comply with what? I thought this was a partnership? I can imagine the reader raising eyebrows. Yes, if you can’t deal with that notion, then you haven’t grasped gender parity.

When your daughters are treated with disdain by their colleagues and subordinates at work don’t complain. After all it’s just a woman being put in her place. Right? And talking of her place, where is that exactly? We will explore the answer in the next instalment.

Priscilla Mangwana is an executive of ZANU PF-UK women’s League. Her profile can be found on http://www.zanupf-uk.com/priscilla-mangwana.html

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