Why do we have very few females in political leadership?
In a recent interview a journalist asked me why there were very few females in political positions. My response was ‘because we have not raised them’. This might seem like a simple answer to a very well thought out question but here’s my logic..
From the time females are babies, we start being taught howto be great wives and great mothers, how to please men. We’re taught this through words, beatings and usually a combination of both.
The sun has been up ages ago, why are you still sleeping? You’re so lazy!
The way you’re so stubborn, it will be hard for you to find a husband. Men don’t like stubborn women.
Does any of this sound familiar ? I bet it does. If we were to convert the number of times you’ve heard this or said it to dollars, how much money would you have? Truth is most of us would be millionaires!
Society works overtime to raise and groom good mothers and wives but never good people or good leaders. How then do we all of a sudden expect that a woman who has been told all her life that the only aspirations that she can have is to be someone’s wife to want anything but that? How do we expect a woman whose only practice at making decisions is what to have for supper that night to stand up and lead a political party? Tell me, how do we expect a woman whose not even allowed to make decisions concerning her own body like, the number of children to have or what to wear to suddenly decide she wants to be president.
It is only a fool that wishes to reap where it has not sown. As a society we should not thrive to be fools!
So, if we want female leaders, we have to start raising them. We have to start teaching our daughters that they too can become political leaders. Let’s teach our daughters that politics is no longer a man’s game but that it is everyone’s game.That as a female, wanting to be president is no longer crazy! However, it shouldn’t stop there, we need to also teach our male children this.. Because, the fight is in the home!
This is actually good if we allow girl child to stand for her self.
ReplyDeleteCheck this out some girls in their minds already developed a mind of man has power because they think if man work then everything is good but this Time it's different.
I support you on this one, let's teach our daughters the right way and to give them space to develop them self's...
Very true. We need to intentionally teach children (both boys and girls) that leadership roles are not soley for men.
ReplyDeleteI love this
ReplyDeleteThe truth in this!!! We can't be expecting women to take up leading positions if all we ever do is teach them how to perfect "supporting roles". Society basically grooms women to be supportive of someone's dream.Its high time our dreams mattered too, we have after all proven ourselves capable..
ReplyDeleteI love this.
ReplyDeleteI bet the next question will be why do we have few disabled people, then few or no members of the LGBTQ, then the people from the San Community in leadership. My two reservations are:1. Reductionist paradigms take great players such as this writer of the ball and them spend energy on the tired sidelines. 2. It is the fetishization of leadership positions that constrain big minds such as ones writing this article, to veer off from the bigger picture of the struggle , score on goals by naturalizing coloniality of power in gender, sexuality and being. Transcending the silos makes us see the contemporary wars for what they are.
ReplyDeleteYes 😐 l can relate. It all needs to start from the grassroot. Great article Ancestress.
ReplyDeleteThe greatest enemy to women emancipation is another woman! Women are pre-occupied with undoing each other. How many women would vote for a female candidate during any election? They would rather have a man at the helm than another woman. If women gang up and use their numbers advantage they would easily break the male dominance.
ReplyDeleteThis is not because of enmity. A few seats are offered for women in the table so now a lot of women are fighting for that one seat. That’s why I always say a seat at the table isn’t the solution for gender equality. The whole system needs to change we need bigger tables where many women will be admitted and there won’t be any reason for fighting.
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