EDITORIAL: Empower women genuinely
Speaking in parliament yesterday, Landless People’s Movement (LPM) leader Bernadus Swartbooi cautioned against unmitigated westernisation of our country, and the dangers that come with it.
He echoes what we wrote in this column a week ago, when we agitated against putting foreign traditions above our own in our quest to look ‘cool’. For example, our obsession with superficiality, rather than shaking the very core of real obstructions to critical challenges such as women empowerment, has not helped us improve things.
Despite cosmetic zebra-style interventions in the political and legislative fraternities, genuine empowerment of women in competitive spaces such as the dog-eat-dog world of corporate leadership remains unresolved. One of the emerging theories in this situation, at least from our own perspective, is that we have dashed the confidence of women by making them believe they cannot ascend to positions of leadership without artificial ladders being created for them.
Meritless cosmetic interventions have been made to usurp women into leadership positions while often leaving the structural bottlenecks that impede their organic rise untouched. We are treating symptoms, not the cause.
Women of our country have been made to believe that without anyone - often a man - holding their hand, they are incapable of ascending to power by themselves.
They have to sit back and wait until their name is called. That’s what the superficial empowerment indoctrination has made them believe.
Yet, William Golding was right on the money when he said: “I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men. They are far superior and always have been”.
He echoes what we wrote in this column a week ago, when we agitated against putting foreign traditions above our own in our quest to look ‘cool’. For example, our obsession with superficiality, rather than shaking the very core of real obstructions to critical challenges such as women empowerment, has not helped us improve things.
Despite cosmetic zebra-style interventions in the political and legislative fraternities, genuine empowerment of women in competitive spaces such as the dog-eat-dog world of corporate leadership remains unresolved. One of the emerging theories in this situation, at least from our own perspective, is that we have dashed the confidence of women by making them believe they cannot ascend to positions of leadership without artificial ladders being created for them.
Meritless cosmetic interventions have been made to usurp women into leadership positions while often leaving the structural bottlenecks that impede their organic rise untouched. We are treating symptoms, not the cause.
Women of our country have been made to believe that without anyone - often a man - holding their hand, they are incapable of ascending to power by themselves.
They have to sit back and wait until their name is called. That’s what the superficial empowerment indoctrination has made them believe.
Yet, William Golding was right on the money when he said: “I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men. They are far superior and always have been”.
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