The Rise of Women in Political Leadership

Original Post Date: 2010-07-30 Time: 21:00:02  Posted By: News Poster

By Paul Shipale

An interesting article by Nkiru Nzegwu, in the Journal of Culture and African Women Studies, prompted me to re-think the rise of women in political leadership in Namibia.

The question is: do we have women MPs who embrace a cause passionately, who have good oratory skills, a stirring speech with ardour and candour and an efficient and easy manner in which they expound arguments and respond to hecklers?

Do we have women who have what it takes to ascend the highest mountains? I believe we do, especially after following the debates in the chambers on the IPU’s report before parliament.

Nzegwu argues that African and African Diaspora women have featured in the political histories of their nations, yet interestingly, the portrait of African women that routinely circulates around the world is one that casts them as ignorant, oppressed, and passive.

This perversely negative image seeks to erase the fact that they have always been entrepreneurial, hardworking, and the backbone of their societies.

They have recorded tremendous achievements in their ordinary lives, and impressive gains in various professional fields of endeavour. These gains have been made in spite of the fact that colonial and post-independent policies of their countries have not been kind to them and to the idea of women as political leaders.

Still, Nzegwu continues, one of the most dramatic areas of African women’s professional achievements is in the arena of politics where, in the past, they had found their access to power and political leadership blocked by a range of factors.

As a result, prior to the 1990s, the political activities of African women and women of African descent have been restricted to the women’s wing of national political parties.

But these restrictions are rapidly being dismantled in post-conflict countries, where conscious efforts were made to restructure societies so as to eliminate impediments to women’s access to power and positions of leadership.

The ensuing redefinition of socio-political realities that followed has led to impressive changes as more and more women are stepping up to take on the challenges of electoral office. Whether or not we agree with their politics, chosen political leanings, or political aspirations, there is no discounting the fact that African and African Diasporan women have made audacious strides.

During the twentieth century there were 46 female presidents and prime ministers worldwide. Many of these women served for short periods, sometimes for less than a year. Three of these leaders were from Africa: Elizabeth Domitien (1975-76) of the Central African Republic; Sylvie Kinigi of Burundi; and Agathe Uwilingiyimana of Rwanda.

The last two served as prime ministers in 1993-94. In the category of heads of state, there are a total of six female presidents of which Africa has President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.

There are five female prime ministers, two of whom are from Africa, specifically Mozambique’s Luísa Días Diogo and Maria das Neves Ceita Batista de Sousa of the Republic of São Tomé e Príncipe. The others are from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and New Zealand.

Johnson-Sirleaf is the second elected black female head of state in the world and also the second female leader of Liberia after Ruth Sando Fahnbulleh Perry, who, as chairwoman of the Council of State, assumed the leadership of the country after the overthrow of late President Samuel K. Doe.

This two-part issue of Women and Leadership celebrates the achievements of African women and the gains they have made in politics and governance, as well as in the legal and creative fields.

It is important to celebrate these achievements and to mark the milestones. Notable among these laudable achievements are the nomination and choice of environmental activist, Dr Wangari Maathai, as the first-ever African woman Nobel Peace Prize Laureate; the emergence of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in Liberia as the first ever African woman president after a hotly contested election, the elevation of Condoleezza Rice from National Security Adviser to Secretary of State of the United States; the election of Portia Miller Simpson, first as the leader of the JPJ party and eventually as the Prime Minister of Jamaica, and the appointment of Dr Asha-Rose Migiro as the Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations.

Also memorable is the phenomenal economic work of former Nigerian Minister of Finance Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, who expertly managed the lugubrious Nigerian economy, and eliminated the external debt owed to the Paris and London Clubs, that had long crippled the nation’s economic growth.

Clayton Goodwin also wrote an interesting article in New African magazine about black politicians in the UK with Diane Abbot as one of the UK’s few black MPs who now stand a good chance to become the leader of the Labour Party, baroness Lady Floella Benjamin who brings imagination to the House of Lords and the practical realism of campaigning for heartfelt causes, and others such as Lady Amos and Baroness Scotland as one of the key black female British political figures of this generation.

In Namibia names of women parliamentarians such as the former deputy Prime Minister Dr Libertina Amathila, the SG of the ruling party SWAPO and Minister of Justice, Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana, the Minister of Environment and Tourism, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, the Minister of Home Affairs, Rosalia Nghidinwa, the Minister of Finance, Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila, the Minister of Gender Equality and Child Welfare, Doreen Sioka, the Deputy Speaker, Loide Kasingo, the deputy chairperson of the National Council, Margareth Mensah-Williams, the Deputy Minister of Local Government, Priscilla Beukes, the three women governors and many ambassadors, including youthful politicians such as Juliet Kavetuna and trade unionists like Connie Pandeni come to the fore.

If one looks at women in the corporate world, we have names such as Martha Namundjebo-Tilahun, Inge Zamwaani-Kamwi, Monica Kalondo, Jacqueline Asheeke and many others, including newly appointed MDs and CEOs such as Nangula Uaandja and Maria Rukoro, plus all those in the academic and medical fields, like Dr Helena Ndume, and other fields such as law where we have our first woman Ombudsperson and current commissioner to the AU, Advocate Bience Gawanas.

As the visibility of African professional women continues to rise, there is greater appreciation of their managerial skills and the need for them to play greater roles in the public sector of their countries and in the international arena.

In recognising these achievements, we should not shy away from critiquing the politics of these women, or from taking issue with aspects of their political beliefs that we disagree with. To do anything less is to patronise them since critique is a necessary component of the democratic process.

A number of scholars examine the factors that affect the progress of women in the field of governance as well as the tales that serve to either affirm or invalidate women’s political work.

Employing a phenomenological reading of Nigerian women’s lived experiences, Olutoyin Mejiuni examines the processes that account for the present low level of women’s participation in civic-political affairs and she argues that: the constructed identity represents a major factor in determining whether women have political power.

She concludes that the potential for challenging and reordering the status quo exists in women who perceive themselves as different from whom men would rather they were.

Carole Boyce Davies examines what happens when members of a subordinated group rises to power within an oppressive system. Whom do these people end up representing?

How does a US black woman manage the internal/domestic political responsibilities while understanding her location in the Diaspora and the transnational world?

What happens when a member of a prior subordinated group now ends up being the face of the empire? How do class, status and political affiliation affect the nature of one’s participation? How do we begin to subject the rise of black women to leadership positions to the kind of internal critique that is fair but necessary?

She responds to these questions by examining the meaning of Condoleezza Rice, a black woman Secretary of State of the US (2005-2008) and international spokesperson for contemporary American imperialism and I will add others such as the current US ambassador to Namibia.

Next, Carolyn Cooper explores some of the class issues in Jamaica surrounding the election of Sister P that helps to explain her endorsement of Portia Miller Simpson’s candidacy for presidency of the PNP.

She begins by critically unraveling the theme of Sister P’s campaign, “the strength of a woman” through translating into Jamaican an African-American etiological tale recorded in Zora Neale Hurston’s collection, Mules and Men. She uses this strategic translation to highlight and affirm Sister P’s command of that “devilish” female cunning that would ensure her victory.

I admit that women have inhabited a cultural, political and intellectual world from whose making they have been excluded. Male-stream scientific knowledge, including sociology, has been used to justify the exclusion of women from positions of power and authority in cultural, political and intellectual institutions of society and I argue that politics is concerned with the dynamics of power relationships in society and must therefore be concerned with the power relationships between men and women.

Kate Millet defines politics as ‘power-structured relationships, arrangements whereby one group of persons is controlled by another’ (1977, p. 23).

Sylvia Walby (1988a) has argued that we need to focus on the goal of gender politics, which is that if politics is about power struggles and contestation it is essential to analyse both parties to the struggle, both feminist and patriarchal political forces and ask why it is that men managed to forbid women to positions of power and what should we do to reverse this trend?

Alfred Makura from the School of Post Graduate Studies, University of Fort Hare, South Africa, says that the affirmative action policy is a deliberate attempt at reforming or eradicating discrimination on the basis of colour, gender, creed and geographical location. The intention is to provide equal opportunities to all competing groups in society, including women. While it has been hailed as a milestone in eradicating discrimination, its results remain a contested terrain.

Some people attributethe policy’s failure to the fact that it is a quota filling but not a development-oriented exercise. Furthermore, some women regard the policies as token gestures from an unappreciative patriarchal society – a manifestation of deep-seated neo-conservative perceptions and backlash; others interpret this development as sex discrimination – a practice dating back to colonialism.

“There is need for deliberate political will by governments to implement conventions and protocols that address gender issues. The starting point is increasing the percentage of cabinet-appointable women parliamentarians,” argues Makura.

In Namibia we have a national gender policy, a national plan of action on gender, a married persons equality Act No.1 of 1996, we are signatory to the CEDAW convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women.

This indicates the Government’s commitment to promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women, but the fact remains that a number of determinisms used as arguments to justify situations such as ‘myths and stereotypes’, understood as well-established beliefs and accepted as facts, are major stumbling blocks not only for women but also for other groups to ascend political offices.

Let us do away with these misconceptions that women cannot be good leaders and I hope the women’s sphere of influence will not end at parties’ women’s wings only.

Original Source:
Original date published: 16 July 2010

Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201007190867.html?viewall=1

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