Tomorrow, Guyana joins the rest of the world in observing International Women’s Day under the theme promulgated by UN Women – the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women – “Think equal, build smart, innovate for change”. However, the campaign theme has been simplified to: “Better the Balance, Better the World” and is being promoted by the hashtag: #BalanceforBetter. This is a clarion call that should not go unheeded during the next 365 days. Gender equity, or parity, or balance whichever we choose to call it is not a women’s issue, it is of global importance and should be treated as such. The world has been off-kilter for far too long.
Even before the first International Women’s Day in 1911, there was a recognition by women and some men that women’s rights were human rights. The Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, China in 1995, marked a significant move forward in gender equity struggle. Much has been achieved since then, strides have been made, but true balance and equity continues to elude us all. Balance for Better is a strident call for gender-balanced boardrooms, governments, parliaments, business, in fact in all sectors and areas; there is much to be gained by achieving balance.
This must be recognised and supported by men; everyone has a part to play in making gender balance a reality. One of the key ways in which men can play a part is to stop imagining themselves as superior to women or viewing women as less than. This is a form of stigmatisation that obtains in the home, in relationships, in schools, in workplaces, in churches, and in governments in many parts of the world.
Unfortunately, Guyana is one such place where gender roles are taught to children while they are still very small. Worse still is the fact that women, who have suffered this form of discrimination, are the ones—albeit unconsciously in many instances—passing on these roles to their children and continuing an unending cycle.
For example: girls are given dolls and kitchen sets as toys, while boys are given cars, trucks and guns; girls are expected to learn to cook, clean and do laundry, boys are taught to do repairs and build things. In many schools, girls are encouraged to take up arts and home economics, while boys are guided towards the sciences and sports.
In workplaces, the imbalance is very pronounced. For instance, in the health sector, while there is an increasing number of up-and-coming women doctors, the field is still largely dominated by men. However, if we look at the nursing profession—a prominent part of that sector—it is still mainly women in those jobs.
There are two main reasons for this. The first is the gender role referred to earlier: women are seen as being better able to provide care to patients. This is of course patently untrue as anyone can provide care. The second reason is that nursing is a poorly paid job. The taught norms include the premise that men have to be providers/breadwinners, they have to earn more than their spouses, so most men, even if they have an aptitude or love for it would rather not join the profession. (The false idea that they have to earn more than their wives has created insecurity in many men and thus damaged many a relationship.)
This same sort of imbalance obtains in the social care workforce and the teaching profession for the same reasons. It should be mentioned too that apart from meagre salaries in these professions, working conditions are appallingly difficult and demanding: the kinds of conditions that women are expected to endure and conquer while still giving of their best.
Furthermore, women do not stop working when they leave their jobs. They go home where they bear the brunt of unpaid work: child-rearing, cooking, cleaning and laundry as their mothers did before them. While there are some men who also take on work in the home because they are ‘woke’ – the popular word for having a sense of awareness – for the most part, this does not happen and often, even when it does, women spend twice as much time as men on household tasks.
As regards women’s representation in corporations and government, Guyana has continually practiced a form of affirmative action and at present has about 32% women in parliament, handpicked by the parties they represent. By contrast, Cuba and Bolivia each have 53% women parliamentarians, while Rwanda has 61.3%
There is established evidence that women’s leadership in political decision-making processes improves not just parliaments and governments, but entire countries. Women demonstrate political leadership working on such issues as the environment, childcare, pensions, gender-equality laws, stamping out domestic violence and sexual exploitation and promoting electoral reform. It is time to better the balance in Guyana and around the world and the only way to do this is for women to take their rightful places as per their qualifications and skillsets. Biological fatherhood is the only job in the world where male genitalia is an absolute requirement.
