Leadership Wisdom: Gender Equity

I love Kusoma book club. Tuesday afternoons at the Newcastle Central Library is exciting when we meet to review interesting books and authors and we’ve had a few uninteresting reviews too. The club compels me to read in depth so I can make an intelligent contribution. Our meeting in May was one I looked forward to with unusual enthusiasm. I joined Pauline my former lecturer, Dr Feyi, Beverley, Annette, a second Pauline and Edwina … Adrian had sent his apologies, which meant I was the only man on the day to review “Woman at Point Zero” by Egyptian psychologist and writer Nawal El Saadawi.

The book, described as a feminist creative non-fiction takes us on a journey into the life of Firdaus, a heart wrenching tale of the plight of women in a patriarchal Egyptian society. Nawal’s prose is exquisitely direct and at times poetic. She met Firdaus on death row awaiting execution for the crime of murder. A proud and unbroken Firdaus had a dignity that belied her past, which was a stumble from one disaster to another. One of the ladies at the club wondered if it was humanly possible to experience such bad luck in a lifetime. It was a harrowing, detached story of a woman who arrived at a place in life where she no longer feared death. Life had dealt her wrong cards, but she was determined to have the last laugh by exercising a complete disdain for death. The setting was 20th century Egyptian society where Firdaus started life with parents who didn’t know what to do with her and a society orchestrated to break and debase her. Her first experience of pleasure was brutally cut off by FGM, and although she was an intelligent girl, the third best student in her region and seventh best in the country, going to school was a way of getting her out of the sight of a sexually abusive uncle who took custody of her when her parents died. She was then married off to a sick old man, forty years older from whom she ran away to endure years of survival as a prostitute. She became a candidate for the gallows when her hard-earned freedom was challenged by a pimp, who was determined to live off her. She killed him. What a story and what a woman!

The story of Firdaus is like Tess of the d’Urbervilles, a character written by Thomas Hardy to depict the plight of women in Victorian England. In 19th century England and 20th century Egypt, there seems to be no difference. Two different cultures, a hundred years apart and two women who ended up executed by hanging. At our book club discussions, it was unanimous, we have not yet achieved equity between the sexes. Gender inequity, which promotes violence against women and girls, which in Firdaus’ world, meant women were routinely beaten by men as a lifestyle still exist in different ways. Gender equity is a practice that helps protect women and leads to a healthier and wealthier society. Equity is fairness that treats individuals based on their specific needs irrespective of their gender; it ensures equivalence in terms of rights, benefits and opportunities. But equity is not equality. Equality is not asking that men should become like women or vice versa, it simply says, there should be no gender bias with regards to responsibilities and opportunities. In a recent World Economic Forum report, we are told it will take 170 years to reach any form of gender equality worldwide and there is no country in the world where women are truly treated as equal to men. In the UK for instance, a current IPSO survey concluded that nearly one in two people agreed that giving women equal rights with men have gone too far and many people now feel men are facing discrimination. Could this be evidence of the entrenched gender norm and stereotyping that continues to drive harmful attitudes towards women and limits their choices and expectations? While the double standards is obvious, we must also apply common sense, which tells us that society will always have good and bad men and women, no gender is intrinsically virtuous or villainous.

“Woman at Point Zero” was a frustrating novel to read for me. I kept waiting for the hero to ride in to save the day, sweep Firdaus off her feet and then they live happily ever after. It never happened. There were so many bad behaved men, just like in Thomas Hardy’s book, all the men were deceiving, exploitative and unsympathetic. On the contrary, the women were strong survivors, ready to take whatever was thrown at them, these women brazenly endured injustice. I would want to imagine a scenario where Firdaus succeeds despite the odds. Where she falls in love and is loved in return, where she raises her own children and passes on her wisdom and resilience to them. It takes strong women to raise strong men and it takes a loving compassionate man to raise a strong woman. It is okay to disagree with me, I just want to imagine what a matured Firdaus could have contributed to her society from her lived experience. There are no anthropological studies that justifies the systemic inequality of women. Could the relationship between men and women improve and lead to a better quality of life for both where people are less self-absorbed and more platonic? My answer is yes. Gender should be more than sexual identification and while the world has celebrated many great people of both sexes, culture and society still create expectations based on certain functions, both biological and social; but the good news is that these expectations are constantly changing.

It is the reality of this change that reassuringly reminds us that society can be re-engineered towards a more equitable relationship between the genders where fairness and a level playing field will exist without bias. I believe everyone has a unique contribution to make in life. I also believe that in any relationship with the added privilege of raising children, parents must seek intellectual and emotional development and challenge one another to excellence. This does not leave out single parent homes and other hybrid combinations. I think the early influence and impact people can have on children is so profound that anyone with a young child must go the extra mile to fulfil the enormous responsibility placed on them to do what is right. Men in the traditional sense focus more on the role of meeting the physical and material needs of the family, which could result in the neglect of the potential of the wives and daughters, paying less attention to developing and nurturing their gifts and talents. Instead of helping to develop the independence, personal ambition and interests of the female, pressure is sometimes used to intimidate, coerce and physically abuse and suppress such desires and aspirations.

In Christianity, gender hierarchy is not a supported concept contrary to what many people may assume. While the Holy Scriptures have a historical and cultural setting, the gift of the Holy Spirit and the adoption and priesthood of every believer is not gender based. The ministry of Jesus Christ for men and women in the New Testament is the same, it is a demand to walk in humility, to serve others in love and be disciplined in mutual submission. As far as God is concerned, males and females are created with equal dignity for shared authority.

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