Radical gender activism will backfire

That women have for centuries suffered gender-inspired injustice and inequality is an undisputable fact that only the ignorant can contest.

That there is a growing need to revolutionise the state of affairs by championing and advocating for equal treatment for men and women is another fact that is too obvious to overlook.

And despite years of gender activism that has achieved equal rights to suffrage, employment and others, in many ways the woman is still an underdog, hence, one understands the strong passion with which some people fight for women’s rights.

But in as much as there is this need to turn things around, adopting militant and mechanical approaches to advance the women agenda backfires every so often, especially in families, thus scaring off the very women targeted for emancipation.

For instance, although the distribution of family chores still burdens women in most families, efforts to create a balance between a wife and husband ought to be systematically thought through other than simply waking up one day and start ordering the man to do household chores.

While it is good to share small tasks in the home, most men will not take kindly to wife’s orders to change or wash nappies because most of them have grown up knowing these as women’s tasks.

Now, this is not their fault because they, together with the disadvantaged women, were simply born and raised in a society that planted the imbalanced values and attitudes in them. Letting go of such tasks is not as easy, the same way some women struggle to embrace empowerment.

As such, efforts made to unseat these values radically is commonly met with resistance as for the men this is seen as a coup d’état of some sort. It should also be understood that changing attitudes is not a one day’s job, neither is it about copying and pasting ideas from books or other people.

And, important as gender equality is in the marriage set-up, it cannot be applied universally in all families simply because the individuals and the situation in the families are not universal. A practical approach to this equality is about understanding one’s family and how the concept of equality can be espoused in the uniqueness of that family unit.

Other women might have to deal with the fact that gender equality for their family may not happen in their lifetime. Marriages happen between adults who have been socialised in different ways, thus they walk into this union with deeply rooted values that may not be easy to let go and trying to force new ways of doing things on someone who believes in something different can only create friction.

The difference in upbringing is evident in men as some have no issues helping out with household chores whereas others will have none of such. However,   gender equality in a family is not just about transforming the husband; it’s also about changing the next generation—the children—by instilling in them gender equality values. It is important, I think, to make sacrifices for the next generation if people are to believe that gender equality can and does work in a marriage setting.