Editorial

Inequality against women must stop now!

Tuesday was marked as International Women’s Day, a day that annually falls on March 8 and dedicated to uplifting women and honouring their achievements, not forgetting the fact that it also serves as an occasion to think of what progress can further be made to better the lives of women.

As usual there were activities on Tuesday to mark the day and even though the day is past, women’s groups and some organisations continue to organise more of such activities to mark it.

For instance, Times Ladies Association, a grouping of female workers of the New Times Corporation (NTC), yesterday organised an event to mark the day in their own small way.

In line with the global theme for this year’s International Women’s Day, ‘Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow’, speakers at the Times Ladies event highlighted the need to break all biases against women, urging women themselves to work hard and contribute their quota to breaking such biases.

Biases against women are perpetrated by mainly men and their attitude is mostly cultural.

Over the centuries, some social constructs have been created and men and women assigned specific roles and behaviours that most men want to maintain in order to see women continually playing second fiddle to them.

Women, thus, continue to suffer male chauvinism in various facets of human life, more especially leadership.

The situation becomes worse where women are in leadership positions on merit but do not enjoy the fullest cooperation of male subordinates because the males think it is abnormal for a woman to be their boss.

But should women sit and cry or complain about their ill-treatment by conservative men who have decided to resist change?

Are only men treating women in unpalatable manner?

There are some women who would choose men rather than women to be their bosses because ofa previous experience with a fellow woman.

Some women bosses are so officious, imperious and peremptory that everyone, particularly fellow women, go silent in their presence and at their orders.

One sometimes wonders if such women have male hormones.

The saying that women are their own enemies holds in such a situation and this must not be left unaddressed.

This is why a specific call by Mrs Georgina N.M. Quaittoo, the Deputy Editor of the Spectator and the Chairperson for the NTC ceremony yesterday, on women to work hard to help break biases against them is highly instructive.

Besides, playing vital roles in the socio-economic development of the country, women should also do introspection and see where their own actions bring them down and what they can do to improve themselves and get empowered to make the necessary strides in various ways.

Sometimes, women’s own negative attitudes work against their progress such as the situation where they show some phobia for certain roles in society and at the workplace.

In today’s world, women have proven themselves equal to men in so many ways but still there is gender inequality against women in the social, economic and the political realms of all countries, which need to be addressed for women to see themselves in the places they expect to be.

Is it not sad to hear that even the US of all countries where “There is no shortage of qualified women to fill leadership roles: women make up almost half of the U.S. labour force. They outnumber men in earning Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees and are nearly on par in getting medical and legal degrees, yet from corporate boardrooms to Congress, from health-care companies to the courts, from non-profit organisations to universities, men are far more likely than women to rise to the highest-paying and most prestigious leadership roles.”?

The inequality against women must stop and now!

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