SLOGANEERING FEMINISM: MORE TALK, LESS ACTION. - DR. OMOLARA PLANG

As the 16 days of Activism for violence against women draws near, organisations have started preparations for the campaign. Activities are being planned, fliers are being made, debates are already happening, controversies around the clash (es) between domestic abuse, culture and religion, are beginning to re-emerge. As usual, the question “What is it that women want” is being asked again, in some circles. The many things that women (mostly) endure in the home, are again topics of discussion. Patriarchy is a hot topic. The responsibility of governments and international institutions to address patriarchy, is shouted from the rooftops. Discourse about how deeply entrenched patriarchy is, in our society becomes more intense. Amidst all of this hustle and bustle, I feel the need to draw attention to some facts. Firstly, governments and the international development institutions they birth, do not fall from heaven. They are a product of our patriarchal societies. This simple fact seems to be persistently forgotten amidst all the excitement. We perpetually and freely assign the responsibility of challenging patriarchy as well as mitigating the effects of patriarchy, to the state. The same state that is a product of, and reflects, our patriarchal societies. While I recognise that there will be schools of thought that will contest the fact that the state is patriarchal, and indeed present arguments to support their perspective, I will contend that one proof (amongst many) of my argument, lies in the gendered composition of most governments today. This piece is not aimed at proving that argument however.

Interventions, campaigns and policies directed at empowering women, fighting domestic abuse, female genital mutilation and so on, are seen as the magic wand that will in time eliminate any form of violence or discrimination against women. The magic wand is placed in the hands of institutions who themselves are a product of and operate with the principles of the same system that brought about the problem we want to eliminate. Little wonder, gender mainstreaming has become rhetoric, a buzzword, with a very small number of policymakers understanding what exactly it means. We have been stuck in a vicious cycle, where year in, year out, we carry the same placards, run the same campaigns, and ask the same people to do something, the same things. This un-progressive, rhetorical, cycle spinning, makes a joke of feminism. It obfuscates the true aim of feminism and buries it in integrationist, tokenistic, patronising and ineffective policy solutions. To make progress, some things need to change. Maybe we need to re-examine our understanding of the problem in the first place. Perhaps we need to re-examine our proposed solutions (policies, projects) to see if they are actually worsening the problem.

Like Carol Bacci has explained about policies, whatever the problem for gender inequality is represented to be for policymakers, is flawed. While I recognise that where we are so far is a long way from where we started from, and it is towards the right direction, I maintain that we cannot yet assume that we have understood what the problem of gender inequality is. This much I know, that it is not the fault of one man, nor many men, it is what our society has taught the men, and the women, to believe and accept. It is not merely what men do to women, it is also what women do to men. It is what one gender leads the other to believe. More importantly, it is also what our governments and our policies lead the genders to believe and accept. It is this latter fact I intend to campaign for during this years’ 16 days of activism. I am shifting from the usual topic of what men do to women, to a broader scope. I am asking if policies, interventions and donor-funded projects themselves perpetrate violence against women.

To illustrate this point, I will use education. Education is used as a useful tool for women’s empowerment. It can reduce the risk of domestic violence. This among many other benefits it provides, makes education a significant feature of most women’s empowerment projects and policies. While I agree that education may confer these benefits, I contend that it can in itself be wielded as tool for violence against women; violence that can manifest in different, and probably worse forms than physical violence. Indeed, education can also be a tool for coercively controlling women. There is a thin line that distinguishes education as women’s empowerment and education as women’s suppression. This line is very often obfuscated in the quantitative indicators that evaluate the success of women’s education programs. The number of women educated is most often than not the only marker of success for such programs. The opportunities available for women to use the education provided for social mobility is frequently not evaluated. The question is: Do the women so educated have the opportunity to use their education for themselves or are they expected to use it to improve their efficiency in their roles as confined to the home. I am calling to question the popular statement

“Educate a man, you educate an individual but educate a woman, and you educate a nation”.

Why is that so? Because the benefits of her education are confined to the home? Is it because the woman will go back to the home and be more efficient at her child-rearing roles, and teach her children? Or is it so she can use her education in the public sector, in politics, the work place to advance the nation as well as her male counterparts? And when the answer to the latter questions is yes, can she do any of that without consequences? Will it be without consequences to her marriage? Her reputation? Is her education and the desire to utilise it to maximise it for her self-development and to her satisfaction a blessing, or a curse? Or is it merely a tool she is given to help her navigate her way in a persistently patriarchal society? If education is meant to create a society where every individual can be the best they can, in the path they choose, can we say that this holds true for every educated woman?

I propose that there are two kinds of education: Mainstream education and Transformative education. Mainstream education is the conventional education provided in schools, sponsored by projects and recognised by most national educational policies. Bernstein’s in his theory of cultural reproduction, tells us that the pedagogic communication used in mainstream education is in itself inherently structured to maintain the uneven power relations within the society and designed to serve the interests of the dominant social ideology – patriarchy. Some are quick to dismiss this theory, but an objective examination of the subjects offered in our mainstream schools, content of textbooks used and the way subjects are taught by teachers will lend credence to Bernstein’s argument. The culture of patriarchy and the consequent subjugation of women, is thus reproduced. A patriarchal culture is reproduced by a system that is presented as one that is supposed to empower women.

Transformative education, on the other hand, is one that equips individuals to challenge patriarchal norms. One within which prevailing pedagogic principles are critically examined and structured to ensure maximal upward social mobility for every individual, regardless of sex. An educational system where mostly only girls are enrolled onto subjects that teach life skills like cooking, sewing and basic hygiene because they are subjects that fit the role that is expected of women, is hardly a transformative one. The provision of transformative education will require deliberate efforts to provide the same skills for every individual and the same opportunities for social mobility. Deliberate efforts to reconfigure current pedagogic principles.

Unfortunately when ‘Education is spoken of within projects and policies, it almost always refer to mainstream education with its attendant cultural reproduction and maintenance of patriarchy, but so well applauded and decorated, that the subtle way it perpetuates discrimination against women is obfuscated.

My 16 days of campaign this year is against such sophisticated but albeit subtle violence against women.