I had a lengthy chat the other day with a senior female politician about wide ranging issues and wondered why the country is in such a mess when there are people like her – and no doubt many others – whose passion for a better Zimbabwe is up there with ordinary men and women of goodwill who toil each day wondering where the kcuf we are going thirty one years on. She went beyond the usual calls for women’s empowerment, gender parity, the usual stuff one would hear from politicians and some such types.

The 21st century is full of gender-bending/gender-mending cliches and contradictions, and I heard it even from Zanu PF’s Aeneus Chigwedere on national television the other night: educate a woman and you have empowered the nation, and sure the women in the audience clapped till their palms hurt. But then with some folks, you know they don’t always mean what they say: three decades is long enough to know someone, ask folks married for that long.

From the despair of the female politician about the long tortuous journey not only to break the glass ceiling but also good governance, better, cheaper sanitary hygiene it struck me she mentioned that if women’s progress in Zimbabwe is to leave a lasting imprint for generations to come, why not start this enlightenment, empowerment, future female politician, gender parity crusade in centres of higher learning; that is, the university and tertiary institutions where young bright females can be encouraged to take up issues that will prepare them for future participation in shaping national policy and issues of governance.

While some female politicians cut their teeth in the bush before independence and others in trade unionism after independence, what contemporary social circumstances and institutions present that opportunity for the continuity of female political participation on a national level? Tertiary institutions right?  Of course it made sense. And then I read on these pages a sad if not bitter letter from a female student in one of the country’s tertiary institutions about her experience with sanitary hygiene.

This is an issue the female politician spoke passionately about concerning how women in Zimbabwe continue being humiliated, as Neanderthal male politicians still dismiss it as an issue that does do not demand street protests! This is exactly what that obviously bright young woman – the letter writer referred to here – was raising in her ire that she says almost saw her leaving a used sanitary pad outside the principal’s office as a form protest.

In the end one has to ask: how do the policy czars balance their calls for women’s participation in portfolios of national relevance when the same young women are denied the conditions that will prepare them for that ascendance? The world – and indeed Zimbabwe – is full of contradictions. One has to wonder what it will take to take anyone who stands on a pedestal and purports to speak for humankind’s greater good. Some would say it is such appalling conditions that will spur them into politics as they are driven to change and better women’s lot not from the couch but from the trenches like their sisters in the bush and later in the trade unions. But then that could well be empty theorizing.

As said by the female politician, young females who have an opportunity to go to university will forever be interested in getting their degrees, then a job with some NGO and just say “kcuf politics” as long as there is no seriousness in addressing issues like what she [and that student and many others] remains passionate about: sanitary hygiene.

An excerpt from a publication by the Katswe Sistahood:

Sanitary What? Sanitary Where?

Must I roll up my used sanitary pad in a piece of tissue and carry it in my bag all day so I can dispose of it when I get home? Alternatively, I could just leave the pad on the floor in the campus toilet because there are no bins for sanitary wear in the toilets across campus, save for those in the hostels. As a day scholar at the institution I am not allowed entry into these hostels.

So, this is how the story goes, the entire institution is run by a male principal and his male cabinet who haven’t got the slightest idea what the needs of young women on campus are. Quite frankly I’m disgusted by this. The question is, am I the only one who is troubled by this horrible situation? Health and hygiene should be of paramount importance in our educational institutions and work places. We need to make sure those responsible are taken to task to deliver on these basic services. Just between you and me, I was tempted one day to leave a soiled sanitary pad outside the principal’s office. It’s too drastic I know, but what must we do to get the necessary response to such an important issue. We need sanitary wear bins in all female toilets on campus in Zimbabwe. And functional incinerators.

- Disgruntled student!

The first time I realised that my hair was not my own was when I was twelve. The school holidays were a week away and as such, my very conservative headmistress relaxed the school rules on hair. All my friends arrived for the last week of school with long braids or relaxed hair. Being a conformist then, I wanted straight hair too. But my father, being of the Bob Marley ‘black and proud’ generation forbade it. My pouting, pleas and final resort to the blackmail of crying did nothing to move him.

‘You are an African princess’ he said, ‘you must be proud of who and what you are.’ I wasn’t comforted.

Regardless of geographical location or history all women of African descent have at one time or another succumbed to the notion that good hair is long and straight. Quoted in a New York Times article on the good hair debate Associate professor of Black Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Ingrid Banks said:

“For black women, you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t, if you’ve got straight hair you’re pegged as selling out. If you don’t straighten your hair, you’re seen as not practicing appropriate grooming practices.”

That our hair is a political statement, and that in its natural state it is not considered desirable is probably one of the few things that we all have in common. So we struggle with extensions and weaves, hot combs and relaxers, in a never-ending battle to be seen as beautiful. The multitude of women on the streets of Harare with an imitation of Rihanna’s straight asymmetric-cut weave is proof of that.

It seems that beauty, as defined by the cosmetic companies that services the industry, has everything to do with being less black. Even here in Zimbabwe, amid indigenisation and empowerment, black women do not feel beautiful without some enhancement that takes away something of what makes them African. And through all of that not once have we stopped to ask ourselves “what is beautiful for me?”

This moving statement from ZINASU for International Women’s Day shares some of the challenges facing women in tertiary institutions in Zimbabwe:

It is now common knowledge that in Zimbabwe there is an upsurge in enrolment. Which is not bad in itself but the problem comes when the welfare of the students is forsaken, to be particular the female students who are the most vulnerable as compared to their male counter parts. When I say the welfare of students I refer to issues relating to accommodation, availability of food, a conducive learning environment, access to sanitary wear etc

Since 2007 the halls of residence at the University of Zimbabwe have been closed despite the high court ruling to open. Accommodation therefore is a nightmare for all students at the oldest University. The undergraduates have been reduced to live like rats in off campus residence where they pay full rentals per head.

As a female you will never escape paying with sex, the lecturers will be waiting for you. Abusive lecturers demand sexual favors for you to pass your courses. As you move to industrial attachment the bosses will be waiting for you no attachment without sex, no report without sex, no assessment without sex. If only we can go back to the era where industries would bid to get a student on attachment the incidences of sexual abuse will be reduced. How do we get there when only a few people own the means of production and we have a corrupt government.

Read more

Sandra Tembo walks past a billboard on her way to Mbare vegetable market in Harare, Zimbabwe, that gives advice she says friends can’t afford to follow: “Your future is brighter without a sugar daddy.”

“I’m sure they realize the risk,” Tembo, a 20-year-old dressmaking student, said of the friends. “But they say being broke all the time also has its dangers, as you could starve.”

African girls who sell themselves for sex to older men, known as sugar daddies, are fueling an AIDS epidemic in Sub- Saharan Africa, home to two-thirds of all people infected with the HIV virus. Young women in the region have HIV infection rates three times higher than young men: 3.4 percent of women aged 15 to 24 and 1.4 percent for men in the same age group.

Now the World Bank is proposing to pay girls like Tembo’s friends as an incentive to keep them in school and prevent AIDS. Cash may be the “ethical policy instrument” of the 21st century, said Mead Over, a health economist at the Center for Global Development, a research organization in Washington.

Read more from Bloomberg.com

I used to be of the opinion that if the father of a woman’s child or children was unwilling to support them financially, then the self-respecting woman should simply provide for them herself.  Why would she have to convince a man to do the responsible thing?  Why would she even subject herself to the rigmarole of the judicial system for a paltry maintenance settlement?  If the fellow didn’t feel obliged in any way to look after his child (children), I believed it best for the  woman to just get on with it herself.  With the needs of children being so immediate, I thought any mother would do better writing-off the useless ‘baby-daddy’ and using their precious time to meet their children’s needs to the best of her ability.

My opinion in this regard has changed significantly.

I know of a woman who has been married for eight years.  The couple have three children.  This woman is better qualified than her husband and as a result, earns more than he does.  However, this was not always the case.  Almost from the day that she received her letter of appointment to a more senior position, her husband just stopped contributing to the home.  Naturally, she began to and continues to take care of the children’s upkeep and household expenses all on her own.  Meanwhile, her fellow’s salary is his and his alone, to spend on himself as he wishes.  This woman has never really confronted her husband about the situation.  She probably feels that as long as she can still manage single-handedly to make things work, why rock the boat?

Hearing of this woman’s situation made something click in me and now I am sick of it! There are far too many males beating their hairy chests (a la gorillas) about being men, all the while taking advantage of one or several women.  It’s despicable that one can claim manhood whilst he doesn’t have a clue what his child eats, wears, how he/she lives.

This is an appeal to every mother; whether CEO of a blue chip or everyday Jane in the street; whether you are married to, separated or divorced from the father of your offspring.  His DNA contributed to bringing your child (or children) to this earth and his duty towards the child’s life did not end on that night (or day).  Children need and do best when they have both mother and father.  So whatever your marital status, ‘baby-daddy’ must play his part and provide physically, emotionally and spiritually to his child’s life.

If the so-called ‘father’ is not living up to his responsibilities, then it becomes the mother’s responsibility to hold the bastard accountable.  Nag him, harass him, drag him to court – do whatever it takes for the sake of your child.  Yes, as women we can and usually do make things happen on our own, without a man.  But we must keep in mind that it’s not only about us and what our pride will or will not allow us to do.  Children also need their father’s love, time, salaries or maintenance payments so that they may not just exist but live fully.