A Bakassi born Strategist and Media Consultant, Frank Edima, has said that women are called for more, and that appointments into female-related roles are not enough to reach the gender equality target. She made this exposition during a seminar to commemorate International Women’s Day in Abuja recently.
According to her, it is rather retrogressive to see that women are only considered fit when roles that are naturally female related are called. “Look around you, from business, religious and political spaces, you will find traces that suggest that gender equality is far from reach. Think about a time in your organization when appointments or leadership roles are about to be given, if a woman is considered fit only when assistance role, secretariat or welfare roles are mentioned, know that there is a problem. The problem, at the moment, is multifaceted, but I will leave you with these two; either the women in the organization are not pushing for more, or the organization does not believe women yet” she said.
She used the recent political appointments in an undisclosed state government as case study when she said “Even with women breaking barriers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), occupations and some overcoming obstacles in leadership roles, the transformation of the gender landscape in the workforce remains fairly limited. I took a look at the recent appointments that were announced in a particular state (I don’t want to mention the name of the state) and I said there is a problem o. How do you only see women announced only into roles like SA Gender Mainstreaming, DG, Women Development Centre, SA Nursing Education, SA Women Mobilization, and less than 10% roles outside of these female-related roles were given to women. In some churches, women are slated to preach only on Women’s Day. …we still have a long way to go.”
She concluded by calling on every society to mentor the next generation of women to never limit their university education and general pursuit to gender related courses and spaces, while also encouraging the working class women to take up more personal development programs for self improvement. On the other hand, she appealed to private and public sectors to ensure a fair distribution of resources, and to give women a chance at leadership, pointing that the current economic reality needs a female face.
