First of all I am not a Feminist (Most of the Time), or maybe I should rephrase it to be I am not a diehard Feminist ……..scratch that, that sounded worse than the first few lines so I will say categorically that I am a career woman who identifies with gender issues (amongst other issues) and I try to be a realist above anything. Breaks into a sigh of relief all this labels though, who is a feminist, who isn’t a feminist the bottom line is that I am a woman trying to soar above the rest in this Climate.
So why this topic you may ask?, it’s 2016 not 1986, The female in the work place is not limited to the receptionist or the secretary, we now have Female Presidents, Prime Ministers, The Current IMF President,
Women are now equally as powerful and successful as men , the Beijing Conference worked!
Before we break our Pompoms and march into the streets let’s ask the critical question what is the ratio of Female CEO’s to Men .
Statistically women make up less than 40% of the workforce globally and that’s counting the low income jobs, Source http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.TOTL.FE.ZS , This extract from data.worldbankorg.com perfectly sums it up. “Female participation in employment is high and the gender gap low in many low income countries where women are engaged in unpaid subsistence agriculture, although they are less involved in paid activities outside the household. Women also tend to be active in high income countries, where over two-thirds of the female adult population participate in the labor market and the gender gap in labor force participation rates is less than 15 percent on average. This is especially true in countries with extensive social protection coverage and societies where part-time work is possible and accepted. In contrast, men’s participation rates are rather stable across countries in different income groups.”
So to sum up this data women are still under represented in the work place, even for those that have paid employment , how many are rising to the ranks of the No 1 position in the Organization, well the answer is “NOT ENOUGH”.
I remember the first time I experienced a level of discrimination in the workplace because of my gender, I had just resumed work in a financial institution and one of the men who was in charge of the particular unit I wanted to work for ,pointedly told me he didn’t like working with women, he graciously pointed out to my shocked expression that it had nothing to do with my qualifications but he simply didn’t like working with women. I honestly didn’t know how to feel, this was a top tier organization, I never expected that kind of rhetoric from someone in that position, however as luck would have it the HR Unit officially moved me to the same unit, his hands were tied and apparently he had no choice.
So there I was young, unwanted and confused but I was determined, not for his approval I really didn’t care about that but I was going to prove him wrong, so I worked the longest, took on the most work, literally sat for a major exam and commuted back to work same day without taking time off, gradually my “ALL Male “ colleagues stopped looking at me as just a pretty face who they could throw office jabs at once in a while and eventually they looked at me as their equal and after several months I got what I wanted their RESPECT. My Boss went ahead and hired three women after me how is that for the movement.
It was the same feeling I felt when I was a new wig appearing alone on a case in court for the first time, everyone including the judge looked at me like a morsel ripe for the eating among wolves, my senior legal colleague had literally dropped a file on me Fifteen minutes before the Court resumed sitting and had snuck off leaving me to cross examine a witness on behalf of our client. As I introduced myself I swear the men in attendance were laughing and talking amongst themselves until of course the initial nervousness began to ebb away and I started my cross examination, The witness being sued for fraud stopped laughing …in their defense though that situation may have had something to do with my shiny new wig and gown and less about my gender but who knows, that was a decade ago things have improved drastically , There are now female’s in almost every leadership role in Nigeria.
Yes “Almost” In an Economy where statistics is showing that the female buying power is surpassing the men, Female Entrepreneurs are taking over the market space, redefining the business culture and now we know for a fact that performance in academics or even positions of power are unrelated to gender,
A woman is just as smart and just as effective as a leader as a man, so where is our equal representation in positions of power, where are the Female Governors, Female Vice President (heck we will take that), Female Ministers (more than Fifteen would not be bad), even ambassadors how many Female Ambassadors do we have? The answer is not enough, after all the talk about female empowerment and equal & fair representation in the workplace the answer is still "not enough".
So as I watch in earnest whilst it has taken the United States of America almost 400 years to get a Female Presidential candidate in one of its major political parties, most likely she will become the President of the United States, so there is definitely hope that Nigeria and all other countries lagging behind will do better. Female entrepreneurs are sprinting up every 5square meters, taking over the cosmetic and fashion industry, there is the new healthy life style industry and women are taking notice, establishing successful businesses with every weight loss product and others in that industry.
Personally I think the question on this day should not be how will women break into the men’s club, I think the Question is how many men will women let into theirs.
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