International Women's Day

It has surprised me a little the important role of females in my experience here. In fact, it seems that this term has been particularly dedicated to the advancement of the "girl child." Between becoming a netball coach and having a club that once was mixed but, to my surprise, became all female, this term I have had a lot of interaction with girls outside the classroom space. Combine this with my indignation of the horrendous state (from a western perspective) of gender-issue awareness (let alone equality!!) and the result has been an issue that I care quite a bit about, one that I would not necessarily would have guessed would have been a focal point of my activity when I began my positions. Gender inequality is a disaster here that has resulted in such tragedies as high abuse rates and the growth of HIV/AIDS. Yet it is also not an issue that any one talks about with any seriousness.

In my Grade 9 Civics class the unit on gender issues happened to coincide with International Women's Day last Thursday. The curriculum developers should be commended for having such a unit, although it should be pointed out that it takes up all of two pages in the textbook (compared to four dedicated to the Commonwealth [what a useful, relevant organization that is], for example). Nonetheless, the two occasions gave me a chance to have a good talk about gender issues in class. This was in a class where only weeks ago I had been told that a woman could not possibly be president of Zambia because they were weak, emotional, and would be disrespected so I felt that such a conversation was long overdue. I took the materials the textbook gave me and went far beyond, trying to draw on other problems that face women besides the largely unrelevant list of discriminatory laws in Zambia (for example, a woman is not allowed to work underground or work in a factory at night). I would like to think that the message hit home for some people. I saw the girls nodding their heads in agreement quite frequently - clearly they had experienced, or knew of people who experienced, the things that I was talking about. To make it clear that I wasn't just a westerner beating up on Africans I also used western examples to illustrate that this was a world, not a Zambian or African, problem.

There was also quite the debacle from the government this last week on the issue of International Women's Day, which fell on Thursday. On Tuesday night the government broadcaster released a press release saying that the cabinet had just held a meeting and declared that Women's Day would henceforth be a national holiday starting this year. Just as people heard of the declaration, the government decided twenty-four hours later to withdraw the holiday and proclaimed that it would start next year. This did make significantly more sense than calling a holiday two days before the event, but flip-flopping hardly helped. Some people took the holiday, others didn't.

Should it even be a holiday? As important as women's issues are here I can't see a holiday helping much. Except for making it easier for the few thousand people who participate in or watch one of the Women's Day activities (a march past the president of women) to take the day off work it really won't make a speck of difference. Zambia has a way of making vast national statements that pay lip service to ideals that in practice make no difference. For example, Zambia is officially a "Christian nation" but I can hardly see how this has helped the behaviour of its citizens become more Christian. In addition, the 12th of March is already a holiday - Youth Day. So to have a holiday on the 8th and then one on the 12th will be nothing but a mess. For example, this year there would have been a holiday on Thursday, then people would have worked on Friday, then had the weekend and a holiday on Monday. Women's groups are very happy about this pronouncement, I guess because they'll take whatever good news they can get. I can't see, however, that the guy who gets the day off work to go hang out at the bar will think of how important women's issues are when he downs his fifth chibuku. I guess I should wait and see and withhold judgement till then but I just can't imagine it will do much good.