The reason women fight over men is simple – lack.

To many women, a single man can represent a roof over their head, food in their belly, clothes on their back and most importantly – a pride in their bearing.

And quite frankly, I don’t know of many people who wouldn’t fight to protect an “investment” that guarantees them most of life’s basic necessities.

I know that I would fight anyone who tried to take my shelter away, grab my food from me and snatch the sweet out of my mouth.

I would fight anyone who made the mistake of trying to leave me nude by pulling the clothes off my back or even worse, expose me to public ridicule by making me an object of pity.

I would fight any one.

The problem though is not that we want to fight for these things or indeed that we desire to have and keep them.

The problem is that not many of us (women) exert ourselves to pursuing these things for our benefit because we have been raised in a society where having a man equates to having all of the above – shelter, food, clothing and “respectability”.

So women fight other women because they fear to remain homeless, hungry, naked and ‘ashamed’.

I know many women who fight to have shelter, to have food, to have clothing by working damn hard to earn those things and whose sense of purpose gives them all the dignity they require – these are the empowered women; clawing their way to the top; understanding that they can succeed on their own.

I know many women; and I am one of them, who don’t summarize other human beings (read men) into shelter, food, clothes and status.

I find it irksome when women who have the potential to accomplish whatever they want in life opt to take a “short cut” by just getting a man to provide all the things they need and because they have chosen this dependency they make themselves vulnerable to abuse from their benefactor (read man).

Not only that, they find themselves obsessed with chasing off other women who will have had the same idea as they did, which is, “Let me find a man to take care of me.”

It seems clever, especially to the young 24 year old involved with a married older man; because she gets what she wants faster and easier than her age-mates who may make the sensible choice of just working hard and slowly attaining the things they wish to have.

Sweat or tears.

Many women prefer to pay through tears; they prefer life’s billing system to charge them through tears of pain, suffering, abuse, rejection and misery as long as they get to drive around in flashy cars they don’t own, live in houses on whose title deeds their names don’t appear; eat food their money didn’t pay for and wear clothes they didn’t lose a cent to buy.

But men are raised differently; they are raised to expect life’s billing system to charge them in the currency called sweat; they sweat to work, to achieve because they have been told that they have to expect to “keep” someone else, to provide a shelter, food, clothing and ‘protection’ to a woman – they can even marry her so that in return she’ll wash, cook, clean and have babies.

Seems like a reasonable arrangement, right?

Well I don’t think so, I think it is unfair to expect another adult who happens to be male to carry the weight of responsibility for another adult who happens to be female by giving him the sole obligation to sweat all life-long while the role of the woman could just be to enjoy the fruits of his labor.

It seems to be such a parasitic arrangement to me.

One way or the other, we’re gonna pay – women need to start deciding whether they want to keep settling life’s bills through tears because as long as the culture of looking for a man to “take care” of you remains, violence against women will remain a vicious cycle.

This level of one-sided dependence is unhealthy, parasitic and creates a fertile environment for women to be abused and to resort to violence when they feel their relationships are being threatened by other women.

So women fight over men because it is matter of survival for them; it is a matter of lack, of defending a relationship that guarantees the basics they desperately need – shelter, food, clothing (and because of society’s skewed patriarchal thinking) some semblance of human dignity – but this “dignity” aspect is fodder for another article.

I know of some men who abuse women and tell them “you’re nothing without me” – the sad reality is; many women truly HAVE nothing unless a man grants it to them.

Parting shot: Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery; none but ourselves can free our minds (Marcus Garvey)

This article is part of series written ahead of and in cognizance of the 16 Days of Activism against gender-based violence

The above two notices in Friday’s Herald caught my eye. The first makes a lot of sense to me. Harare has a huge water problem – as evidenced by the lack of water in our three-storey office block this week, as just one example. As the notice points out, “the city’s water supply infrastructure cannot satisfy the current demand. This is further worsened by infrastructure breakdowns and power outages.”

Surely, then, the city would recognise the need to fundraise and invest in infrastructure and power maintenance, repairs and development?

Meanwhile, a second notice warns suppliers against providing fire equipment without a SAZS Seal of Approval (Standards Association of Zimbabwe). This, the notice explains, is “aimed at protecting the public from substandard fire equipment that has found its way into the country.”

But why has this substandard fire equipment suddenly found its way across our borders? Because of a mad rush by motorists to get fire extinguishers, among other items, in time for the 1 December deadline of the new Road Traffic Regulations.

We’ve been looking for a month and have yet to find an SAZ approved fire extinguisher at any local hardware. How is the City of Harare going to warn suppliers of this issue? How will it enforce it, and if they do collect fines, how will that revenue be allocated?

I’m reminded of Thandi’s waste not, want not blog. What about fining people for using hose pipes, using that money to invest in water supply requirements, and dropping the whole fire extinguishers in vehicles issue altogether?

SW Radio Africa this week launched Question Time – “where listeners get a chance to ask politicians direct questions,” hosted by Lance Guma.

The first guest this week was co-Home Affairs Minister Theresa Makone of the MDC.

One listener asked why the pivotal Home Affairs ministry had been shared between the MDC and Zanu PF, and how the sharing of this with Zanu PF’s Kembo Mohadi was going.

Makone replied: “On a personal level, and on a professional level, I can work very well with Comrade Mohadi. We’ve got absolutely no problem with each other and with the way we see things and the way they should go.” Listen here

Oh really?

Kembo Mohadi has been Minister, or co-Minister of Home Affairs for such incidents as the:

• Violent induction for police recruits
• Arbitrary and prolonged detention of diamonds campaigner Farai Maguwu
• The ban of Owen Maseko’s artwork on Gukurahundi
• Numerous arrests of human rights campaingers such as Women of Zimbabwe Arise, and their continued harassment
• Judicial harassment against GALZ staffers Ellen Chademana and Ignatius Muhambi
• Enforced disappearance of Jestina Mukoko and dozens of other human rights defenders

Some of these incidents, including the arrest of GALZ members, the banning of Maseko’s artwork and the detention of Farai Maguwu on specious charges for over one month have occurred since the signing of the Global Political Agreement, and the sharing of the Home Affairs Ministry. Does Minister Makone – and by implication the Movement for Democratic Change – really have no personal, or professional problem with of these actions?

Other questions asked the Minister by our SMS subscribers included:

• There was violence during COPAC . What is the stance during election period ?
• What’s being done on police officers demanding money on road blocks?
• Are we going to see free elections next year?
• I still note that long ques stil exist at passport office.what measures have u taken so far to improve situation considering that we are going into festival season and lots of pple need 2 travel?
• As the Minister of  Home Affairs what measures have u put in place to help the city dwellers from the tranpsort operator s exorbitant fares?

Listen to the full programme here

Participate in Question Time

Using new media tools Facebook, Twitter, Skype, e-mail and SMS, listeners are told in advance who the guest is and using the same media tools they can then send in questions for the presenter to ask on their behalf. On Facebook, Twitter or Skype you can reach Lance by typing lanceguma. On e-mail lance [at] swradioafrica [dot] com and in Zimbabwe text +263 772 643 871.

Half way through a too hot, too long run yesterday my friend asked me if I wanted a “penny cool,” one of those colourful, frozen sugar water drinks thus named from the 80’s when they really did cost just one cent. Gratefully, I assented. So much for one cent each though. In 2010? They’re 5 (South African) rand each, or two for a (US) dollar.

According to Agence France Presse:

Using mobile-phone text messages to remind HIV patients to take their dose of life-saving medications can give a major boost to drug adherence, according to an innovative trial in Kenya unveiled on Tuesday. In the “WelTel Kenya1″ study, three clinics recruited 538 patients with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). They either received the weekly SMS message on their mobile phone in addition to a standard course of antiretroviral drugs or were given standard care alone.

The text recipients typically received the discreet message “Mambo?”, which is Kiswahili for “How are you?” They were instructed to reply “Sawa” (“fine”) or “Shida” (“problem”) within 48 hours. Those who said they had a problem or who failed to respond to the prompt within two days were then called by a nurse to find out what was wrong. In the SMS group, the number of patients who achieved 100-percent adherence to their drug regimen was 12 percent higher than in the non-text group. In addition, the numbers who were able to achieve suppression of HIV to below detectable levels in their blood — a key benchmark of success — was nine percent higher in the SMS group than in the standard-care group.

Read more from AFP or check out the full study in The Lancet

This update from Veritas (below) impressed me – the MDC is demonstrating in action what it means when it says it “won’t recognise” appointments like the Provincial Governors.

The part about the Senators “singing, dancing and whistling” brought to mind this image from Anton Kannemeyer’s Alphabet of Democracy series.

For the second day running MDC-T Senators brought the Senate to a standstill in protest against the presence of “intruders”.  Immediately after the opening prayer MDC-T Senator Tichaona Mudzingwa rose to object to the presence of Thokozile Mathuthu, David Karimanzira, Jason Machaya and Faber Chidarikire in the House.  [These are persons who the MDC-T say are no longer ex officio members of the Senate, as they were illegally and unconstitutionally appointed as provincial governors by President Mugabe.]  The President of the Senate refused to accept the objection, whereupon the MDC-T Senators starting singing, dancing and whistling and made such a noise that the President of the Senate rose to adjourn the Senate until February.  No business was conducted.  MDC-M Senators present did not join in the demonstration.

Today’s events were a repeat of yesterday’s adjournment without business being conducted, after MDC-T made a similar protest against the presence of Thokozile Mathuthu. The MDC-T position is that MDC-T Senators will continue to prevent the Senate conducting any business until the issue of provincial governors’ appointments has been resolved.

If the issue over the provincial governors is resolved before the 8th February, it will be possible for the Senate to be recalled early.  Senate Standing Order 187 empowers the President of the Senate, at the request of President Mugabe, to recall the Senate for an earlier meeting if the “public interest” so requires. The Senate could be recalled at any time, even if the provincial governor problem is not resolved, but this is unlikely to happen as it would, no doubt, lead to further incidents.