[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
the public especially within government
and such offices exists in the executive
arm of government legislature judiciary
and related agencies entry into these
offices are either elective or appointed
processes and the number of women in
public office is determined by how they
prepare for and engage in such processes
and none of women that I’ve spoken to
who I think should be in public office
are averse to those political processes
speaking of them as demeaning dirty
corrupt and even though I agree that
politics is not for the faint-hearted it
means that these women are allowing
other people to make decisions about
their own lives public policy positions
so how then do we get women to own their
own political destinies the fact is that
although political office has a higher
calling and we all know that to do good
for all to provide service for others
the bottom line is that it’s about
self-interest
now self-interest is varied it varies
from individuals different groups
organize groups groups that are not so
organized and every individual human has
his needs or her needs desires
priorities and preferences
in the world where we live politics is
the management of the power relations
between these interests and determines
who gets what and how in government it
is these very interests that determine
how resources are shared and that’s why
everyone just was to get a seat at the
table they want they need to be
represented if you’re absent at the
table so are your interests I believe
that women need to be at the seat of
government for four good reasons
population taxes votes and difference
and I’ll unpack that for you women are
50% of the world’s population therefore
any issues that affect us are actually
national mainstream issues they’re not
side or separate issues by numbers alone
we ought to be at the table secondly we
pay taxes indirectly or directly and we
ought to be able to demand that the
money that we pay translates in
supporting that programs but instead the
money that we pay translates into
activities that support issues that
affect us thirdly elections in most
countries count on women to vote
majority of votes are cast by women but
the minority they get the minority of
seats that either are appointed or
elected and we’re going to come back to
the why on that but lastly even though
women and men are equal we are different
from the moment of birth to the onset of
menstruation the rites of passage the
challenges of pregnancy and childbirth
motherhood menopause these are issues
that affect us very differently from the
other gender the list is actually
endless
whether we talk about formal
discrimination or informal
discrimination in our educational places
in our workplaces whether we’re talking
about physical and emotional violence
rained on our bodies or our minds in
private or public spaces whether we are
talking about the challenges of single
motherhood which is now becoming a big
phenomena or the fact that we have have
become the primary givers of our
children and our elderly parents all
these situations have challenges that
need solutions which can only be
articulated by those who are affected
but the fact is that those who are most
affected are not the ones largely been
elected or appointed they’re not the
ones looking into the laws and policies
and deciding where the resources are
going that would address these issues
women really must take their right place
in centerstage politics but of course
getting there isn’t easy in the past
parent privilege only belonged to white
wealthy Western healthy educated males
some say it still does but nowadays well
with the advent of democracy and you
know the promotion of human rights more
marginalized groups have sort of come
out somewhat and now here in Africa you
will find privilege with black wealthy
healthy educated males the female
species doesn’t really feature in the
power food chain unless right at the
bottom and that’s where you’re really
going to find poor uneducated black
women fact history has shown us that the
process of ceding power is often a
struggle ceasefires and treaties are
negotiated after blood has been spilled
and pain and sacrifice make Martius the
women’s worldwide movement all over has
shown us this where women have gained
entry into politics you will find that
they are brave pioneers few in numbers
but strong and courageous who have faced
an avalanche of abuse or to the
ostracization and the application of
double standards young women now and I
worry about this I worry that young
women are coming into adulthood without
an understanding of the world that we
now live in and that they enjoy rights
that women didn’t enjoy a hundred years
ago I worry that if they don’t
understand this the gains that women
have made will be rolled back if they
don’t understand how hard it was to make
it easy for them now I worry that young
women today do not know the names of
susan b anthony angela davis benazir
bhutto Maya Angelou Andrea Dworkin and
one Gary Mathias
many of you will agree of course we know
one Gary Mathias
she’s our Nobel laureate but do you know
one Gary methane do you know his story
as a university student in the mid 80s I
was struck by this woman Colvin guru
Mathai she was a clarion call for the
women’s rights movement she was brave
and defiant she had a message of hope
she challenged the status quo and what
did she get for it she was abused and
demeaned and if you were to ask your
mothers who were then women working
mothers then so many women were ashamed
we were told you don’t want to be like
Wangari Maathai women are supposed to be
seen and not heard but one Gauri didn’t
care she had issues she had big issues
she was talking about planting trees she
was talking about conserving our water
towers she was talking about the
environment and saving our parks and
everyone else was talking about her
divorce
and how she shouldn’t talk to the
president because she was a woman yes
later I was privileged to serve with one
dairy in the ninth Parliament and I
asked her how did you manage that
how did you manage the isolation the
pain the struggle all alone and she said
you know all women politics will face
these problems because we have a double
standard that applies to women who go
into politics that doesn’t apply to men
when Gary called it the application of
neck-down politics
she said that Juarez women are talking
about things that they are thinking with
their brains which is Nick up and
they’re talking about hospitals and
schools and roads the men who are posing
them are looking neck down is she
married is she not is she divorce is she
remarried does she have children she
doesn’t she has too many children her
children are from different fathers
they’re preoccupied by everything apart
from what she is thinking from the neck
up and these are the challenges that
women continue to face today and it’s
tough it’s tough up until about ten
years ago it was kind of difficult to
find the presence of women in political
parties in this country but in 2007 I’m
happy I was part of that initiative the
women in Parliament spearheaded ahead he
spearheaded an effort that introduced
into law the requirement that one third
of the National Executive Committees of
political parties must be women and it
was a tough fight nobody wants to share
those kinds of seats no one gives up
power however we demanded we said as
taxpayers women because the political
the government had introduced a
political party’s fund we demanded that
that political parties fund witches
which was part of our taxes needed to
show how it was going to benefit women
and therefore we had this proviso that
the 1/3 women would be in the political
parties and then when the law came its
place they would stipulate a deadline
and you know it worked you should have
seen them scrambling looking trying to
find finding women to meet the
stipulated deadline so that they could
get the money for the political parties
that’s another thing that I learned how
to do you have to connect one interest
to another interest in order to gain
some of the things that we want for
women we now have our foot in the door
it’s not that impressive when I was in
Parliament we were 18 women out of 2224
now in the National Assembly there 67
women in the house of 350 we are growing
but we’re not that there in those 20
years women who have been in the 20
years since we started working on these
issues women have given our issues waste
but they’ve also learned how to
negotiate working by demand nowadays
doesn’t work so well we’ve had to learn
how to negotiate with the opposite
gender we’ve also learned how to
strategize to be work wise we’ve also
learned how to piggyback on other’s
self-interest in order to achieve
women’s gains and I’d like to share a
brief experience of my own on this as a
young women activists in the late 90s in
the Federation of women lawyers we were
very concerned that many young girls
were dropping out of school and when we
studied it carefully we realized that
these girls would not go to school
during their menses because they could
not afford sanitary towels and therefore
they would not go to class they would
not do exams and they would drop out of
school we tried to find out why this was
so we talked to the manufacturers and
they said the government was loving such
you know
load amount of tax on these and she
tells and that’s why they were so
expensive off we trooped the Minister of
Finance his office and we asked him so
what’s going on why insanitary tell so
expensive and he did his homework and
came back to us and said oh my goodness
you see I have this group of seventeen
experts or male that sit and decide
itemized things and put them in
different tax categories and these men
simply when they came to sanitary towels
simply put it together with lipstick and
perfume and women’s things and that’s
why Shannon she tells were being taxes
luxury items never mind that the same
group of experts had subsidized male
condoms etc I’m sure if there was one
woman and now they are women in that
committee it would have been different
so here we were sorry she tells
unaffordable and what do we do about it
the minister said well my hands are tied
you know why you have to talk to
Parliament and blah blah fish anyway I
got the opportunity I joined Parliament
in 2003 and we’re like yay okay now
let’s deal with this issue together with
my fellow women parliamentarians and
let’s get this issue let’s talk about
zero-rating the sanitary towels it
didn’t work for a whole year until
somebody a friend of mine mail in
Treasury whispered and said you’re not
selling it right we’re very sympathetic
about the girls not going to school but
you know this is a whole you know you
need to sell it right and he gave us a
record of how to do this so firstly we
packaged it
we were explained a belay Nazeri
mandarins that if girls don’t drop out
if girls continue to drop out of school
in 20 years time it would affect the
economy of the country if these girls
went to school their contribution
towards the gtp would be much higher it
makes more economic sense for them to go
to school it makes more sense so the
treasurer mandarines
and they were like that’s a good point
but still we had Parliament to deal with
and in Parliament
they you know lots of older traditional
but we do that a lot by the way in this
country we tend to vote for older
traditional males I don’t know if you’ve
noticed that but anyway so that’s what
we were looking at first of all they
didn’t even want to discuss this thing I
mean they look down upon
advertising Sanergy tells on television
what do you mean we’re going to talk
about it in the August house talk about
what bleeding blood bags know so we
thought about it and we said okay we’re
in an African setting in a country lots
of up who leaves out polygamists and one
very influential member of parliament
had four wives and twelve daughters so
we sat him down pencil and paper
calculating how with all these females
in your house sixteen you spend so much
per packet of sanitary towels per month
multiplied by 16 multiplied by twelfth
of the year multiplied by the number of
years that you will be actually buying
these Sonny Charles of these women any
at the end of it I tell you he threw
down his pencil said the government was
ripping him us up him off and he’s like
you know what in fact he just said there
are thieves I remember that distinctly
they’re thieves he said I’m gonna help
you do this and he helped us mobilize
all the other men and in 2004 sanitary
towels was serrated the next time you
vote the next time you pay tax the next
time you experience discrimination
please don’t wait for the next time to
become involved get a seat at the table
[Music]
[Music]
the public especially within government
and such offices exists in the executive
arm of government legislature judiciary
and related agencies entry into these
offices are either elective or appointed
processes and the number of women in
public office is determined by how they
prepare for and engage in such processes
and none of women that I’ve spoken to
who I think should be in public office
are averse to those political processes
speaking of them as demeaning dirty
corrupt and even though I agree that
politics is not for the faint-hearted it
means that these women are allowing
other people to make decisions about
their own lives public policy positions
so how then do we get women to own their
own political destinies the fact is that
although political office has a higher
calling and we all know that to do good
for all to provide service for others
the bottom line is that it’s about
self-interest
now self-interest is varied it varies
from individuals different groups
organize groups groups that are not so
organized and every individual human has
his needs or her needs desires
priorities and preferences
in the world where we live politics is
the management of the power relations
between these interests and determines
who gets what and how in government it
is these very interests that determine
how resources are shared and that’s why
everyone just was to get a seat at the
table they want they need to be
represented if you’re absent at the
table so are your interests I believe
that women need to be at the seat of
government for four good reasons
population taxes votes and difference
and I’ll unpack that for you women are
50% of the world’s population therefore
any issues that affect us are actually
national mainstream issues they’re not
side or separate issues by numbers alone
we ought to be at the table secondly we
pay taxes indirectly or directly and we
ought to be able to demand that the
money that we pay translates in
supporting that programs but instead the
money that we pay translates into
activities that support issues that
affect us thirdly elections in most
countries count on women to vote
majority of votes are cast by women but
the minority they get the minority of
seats that either are appointed or
elected and we’re going to come back to
the why on that but lastly even though
women and men are equal we are different
from the moment of birth to the onset of
menstruation the rites of passage the
challenges of pregnancy and childbirth
motherhood menopause these are issues
that affect us very differently from the
other gender the list is actually
endless
whether we talk about formal
discrimination or informal
discrimination in our educational places
in our workplaces whether we’re talking
about physical and emotional violence
rained on our bodies or our minds in
private or public spaces whether we are
talking about the challenges of single
motherhood which is now becoming a big
phenomena or the fact that we have have
become the primary givers of our
children and our elderly parents all
these situations have challenges that
need solutions which can only be
articulated by those who are affected
but the fact is that those who are most
affected are not the ones largely been
elected or appointed they’re not the
ones looking into the laws and policies
and deciding where the resources are
going that would address these issues
women really must take their right place
in centerstage politics but of course
getting there isn’t easy in the past
parent privilege only belonged to white
wealthy Western healthy educated males
some say it still does but nowadays well
with the advent of democracy and you
know the promotion of human rights more
marginalized groups have sort of come
out somewhat and now here in Africa you
will find privilege with black wealthy
healthy educated males the female
species doesn’t really feature in the
power food chain unless right at the
bottom and that’s where you’re really
going to find poor uneducated black
women fact history has shown us that the
process of ceding power is often a
struggle ceasefires and treaties are
negotiated after blood has been spilled
and pain and sacrifice make Martius the
women’s worldwide movement all over has
shown us this where women have gained
entry into politics you will find that
they are brave pioneers few in numbers
but strong and courageous who have faced
an avalanche of abuse or to the
ostracization and the application of
double standards young women now and I
worry about this I worry that young
women are coming into adulthood without
an understanding of the world that we
now live in and that they enjoy rights
that women didn’t enjoy a hundred years
ago I worry that if they don’t
understand this the gains that women
have made will be rolled back if they
don’t understand how hard it was to make
it easy for them now I worry that young
women today do not know the names of
susan b anthony angela davis benazir
bhutto Maya Angelou Andrea Dworkin and
one Gary Mathias
many of you will agree of course we know
one Gary Mathias
she’s our Nobel laureate but do you know
one Gary methane do you know his story
as a university student in the mid 80s I
was struck by this woman Colvin guru
Mathai she was a clarion call for the
women’s rights movement she was brave
and defiant she had a message of hope
she challenged the status quo and what
did she get for it she was abused and
demeaned and if you were to ask your
mothers who were then women working
mothers then so many women were ashamed
we were told you don’t want to be like
Wangari Maathai women are supposed to be
seen and not heard but one Gauri didn’t
care she had issues she had big issues
she was talking about planting trees she
was talking about conserving our water
towers she was talking about the
environment and saving our parks and
everyone else was talking about her
divorce
and how she shouldn’t talk to the
president because she was a woman yes
later I was privileged to serve with one
dairy in the ninth Parliament and I
asked her how did you manage that
how did you manage the isolation the
pain the struggle all alone and she said
you know all women politics will face
these problems because we have a double
standard that applies to women who go
into politics that doesn’t apply to men
when Gary called it the application of
neck-down politics
she said that Juarez women are talking
about things that they are thinking with
their brains which is Nick up and
they’re talking about hospitals and
schools and roads the men who are posing
them are looking neck down is she
married is she not is she divorce is she
remarried does she have children she
doesn’t she has too many children her
children are from different fathers
they’re preoccupied by everything apart
from what she is thinking from the neck
up and these are the challenges that
women continue to face today and it’s
tough it’s tough up until about ten
years ago it was kind of difficult to
find the presence of women in political
parties in this country but in 2007 I’m
happy I was part of that initiative the
women in Parliament spearheaded ahead he
spearheaded an effort that introduced
into law the requirement that one third
of the National Executive Committees of
political parties must be women and it
was a tough fight nobody wants to share
those kinds of seats no one gives up
power however we demanded we said as
taxpayers women because the political
the government had introduced a
political party’s fund we demanded that
that political parties fund witches
which was part of our taxes needed to
show how it was going to benefit women
and therefore we had this proviso that
the 1/3 women would be in the political
parties and then when the law came its
place they would stipulate a deadline
and you know it worked you should have
seen them scrambling looking trying to
find finding women to meet the
stipulated deadline so that they could
get the money for the political parties
that’s another thing that I learned how
to do you have to connect one interest
to another interest in order to gain
some of the things that we want for
women we now have our foot in the door
it’s not that impressive when I was in
Parliament we were 18 women out of 2224
now in the National Assembly there 67
women in the house of 350 we are growing
but we’re not that there in those 20
years women who have been in the 20
years since we started working on these
issues women have given our issues waste
but they’ve also learned how to
negotiate working by demand nowadays
doesn’t work so well we’ve had to learn
how to negotiate with the opposite
gender we’ve also learned how to
strategize to be work wise we’ve also
learned how to piggyback on other’s
self-interest in order to achieve
women’s gains and I’d like to share a
brief experience of my own on this as a
young women activists in the late 90s in
the Federation of women lawyers we were
very concerned that many young girls
were dropping out of school and when we
studied it carefully we realized that
these girls would not go to school
during their menses because they could
not afford sanitary towels and therefore
they would not go to class they would
not do exams and they would drop out of
school we tried to find out why this was
so we talked to the manufacturers and
they said the government was loving such
you know
load amount of tax on these and she
tells and that’s why they were so
expensive off we trooped the Minister of
Finance his office and we asked him so
what’s going on why insanitary tell so
expensive and he did his homework and
came back to us and said oh my goodness
you see I have this group of seventeen
experts or male that sit and decide
itemized things and put them in
different tax categories and these men
simply when they came to sanitary towels
simply put it together with lipstick and
perfume and women’s things and that’s
why Shannon she tells were being taxes
luxury items never mind that the same
group of experts had subsidized male
condoms etc I’m sure if there was one
woman and now they are women in that
committee it would have been different
so here we were sorry she tells
unaffordable and what do we do about it
the minister said well my hands are tied
you know why you have to talk to
Parliament and blah blah fish anyway I
got the opportunity I joined Parliament
in 2003 and we’re like yay okay now
let’s deal with this issue together with
my fellow women parliamentarians and
let’s get this issue let’s talk about
zero-rating the sanitary towels it
didn’t work for a whole year until
somebody a friend of mine mail in
Treasury whispered and said you’re not
selling it right we’re very sympathetic
about the girls not going to school but
you know this is a whole you know you
need to sell it right and he gave us a
record of how to do this so firstly we
packaged it
we were explained a belay Nazeri
mandarins that if girls don’t drop out
if girls continue to drop out of school
in 20 years time it would affect the
economy of the country if these girls
went to school their contribution
towards the gtp would be much higher it
makes more economic sense for them to go
to school it makes more sense so the
treasurer mandarines
and they were like that’s a good point
but still we had Parliament to deal with
and in Parliament
they you know lots of older traditional
but we do that a lot by the way in this
country we tend to vote for older
traditional males I don’t know if you’ve
noticed that but anyway so that’s what
we were looking at first of all they
didn’t even want to discuss this thing I
mean they look down upon
advertising Sanergy tells on television
what do you mean we’re going to talk
about it in the August house talk about
what bleeding blood bags know so we
thought about it and we said okay we’re
in an African setting in a country lots
of up who leaves out polygamists and one
very influential member of parliament
had four wives and twelve daughters so
we sat him down pencil and paper
calculating how with all these females
in your house sixteen you spend so much
per packet of sanitary towels per month
multiplied by 16 multiplied by twelfth
of the year multiplied by the number of
years that you will be actually buying
these Sonny Charles of these women any
at the end of it I tell you he threw
down his pencil said the government was
ripping him us up him off and he’s like
you know what in fact he just said there
are thieves I remember that distinctly
they’re thieves he said I’m gonna help
you do this and he helped us mobilize
all the other men and in 2004 sanitary
towels was serrated the next time you
vote the next time you pay tax the next
time you experience discrimination
please don’t wait for the next time to
become involved get a seat at the table
Please follow and like us: