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Male chauvinism, out of which was born the highly distasteful expression “male chauvinist pigs”, is a phenomenon that has characterised African societies for ages, and, there are no signs on the horizon that it will vanish in the foreseeable future. Erasing the phenomena is a slow, and in quite many cases, an agonising process. It entails patience and understanding – attributes that are usually rare. As part of the broad African society, Tanzania is part of that scenario. From family units to political establishments, and even the clerical sphere that is enjoined to promote equality and justice, evidence abounds, of women being undermined. In family relationships, they are perceived as biological machines for reproduction.
This explains the rush by parents – fathers and mothers alike – especially in very conservative communities, to marry off their adolescent daughters, not just for dowry (thereby reducing them to saleable commodities) but to conform to cultural norms. Beyond matrimonial set-ups, females are patronisingly referred to as instruments for satisfying the intimate needs of men.
Those who overly keen of sexual liaisons outside marriage are branded as prostitutes, the fact that “it takes two to tango” being deliberately ignored. Men of the same inclination are look at with awe and branded as “real men”.
In family management, the kitchen is cited cynically as the woman’s operational base, implying that she is the one upon whom fate thrust the role of cooking for family members.
Her other chores include carrying out physically and emotionally demanding tasks like fetching water from far-away sources , and farm work, whose proceeds men feel free expropriate.
Women are furthermore demeaned by their projection as creatures of glomour in commercials, and objects of attraction in beauty pageants.
All that has had a negative bearing on the attitudes of female folk, who have to endure a socially oppressive system.
Yet strides have been made in efforts to dismantle the negative, misleading portrayals of males as being superior to women, and the inroads made by women in the academia, the professions and even the clergy, being perceived as intrusive.
In educational institutions, females have gone an admirable step further than proving that they are good achievers – many are out-shining their male counterparts in school and college examinations.
Sterling successes and achievements are also manifest in various professions, to the extent that today, it is no longer amazing that some women are, purely meritoriously, chief executive officers in public as well as private sectors.
Significantly, too, women hold key posts in the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary, plus the Armed Forces and the Police Force.
The gradual weakening of man’s chauvinistic tendencies and cultural conservatism, which translates into scores against gender barriers, has partly found expression in the favourable gender equality ratings in 2011, by the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Gender Right Report 2011.
The report notes that Tanzania fares favourably in political empowerment. It, however, also shows that the gender is worsening in African and South American countries, a categorisation of which the country is part.
By implication, therefore, the situation demands a doubling or tripling of efforts to close the gap, while also, justifiably, celebrating modestly over occasional positive mention in reports on global surveys on various facets of the country’s social and economic life.
It is a challenge that must be undertaken with greater zeal, because women constitute a potent force in managing households, facilitating farm produce, generating income through the vibrant entrepreneurship spirit, role modeling in morality, and political leadership.
The guiding principle must remain that, women are part and parcel of all societal challenges, obligations and expectations, and that, their specific gender is only incidental.
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