International Women’s Day
Issue: Editorial
Keeping
the Bastards Accountable: Women’s Rights & the New Constitution.
The beginning point is the soldiering words of
Freedom Nyamubaya when she says ‘Freedom may remain a myth, Until we claim it’
(by way of a poem called Mysterious Marriages Continued). The second act
listens to the words of Maya Angelou when says ‘Alone, All alone, Nobuddy but
Nobody Can make it out here alone’ (by way of poem called Alone). To
these veteran voices we add a third act of pure subversion, that of the roaring
voice of spoken word poet Linda Gabriel, when she unfurls the contradictions of
our society in which she reminds us of the ‘sins of our mothers, who give their
teenage aged daughters to men who are older than the fathers in exchange for
bread and a kanga cloth or a bar of soap’ (by way of a poem called Sins of
Our Mothers) This is speaking truth to power without reservation.
The articles in this Special Issue are in
commemoration of International Women’s
Day on the 8th of March 2017.
The articles and the poem at the end, by Freedom Nyamubaya, brings into
sharp relief the long winding struggle for women’s rights in Zimbabwe and the
context within which these contestations have taken place. The articles also
place an agenda on the table: that women’s liberation is a critical question in
Zimbabwe’s decayed political economy especially because women suffer
disproportionately, are subjected to violence, systemic exclusion and pressured
by socio-cultural institutions which must be transformed.
We would like to express our gratitude to Grace
Kwinjeh for help in bringing out this special issue without being paid a
cent. Conversations started in Gravitas will continue through the week on our social media and also in selected independent
media platforms.
Tamuka C.
Chirimambowa & Tinashe L. Chimedza. Gravitas Co-Editors
Women Representation in State
Institutions: A Critique
Rachel Rufu*
Enter the
New Constitution: Why Women Voted Yes
In 2013 Zimbabwe introduced a new Constitution which is extremely
progressive and sets a good framework of enhancing women’s rights. The
Constitution established a Gender Commission, talks to the question of gender
parity and importantly prohibits discrimination. Teresa Mugadza, argued that
she was voting yes because the constitution provided for the ‘supremacy of the
constitution over all other laws and policies’ and this would mean ‘the
guarantee of women’s rights at the highest level’ and also that the
constitution had provisions to ‘promote the full participation of women in all
spheres of life’. These gains were won by a very vocal and sophisticated
women’s movement which has been active stretching back into the liberation
movements, in the 1980s, in the National Constiutional Assmebly. That women’s
movement crystallised their demands in the Women’s Charter of 2000.
While a definitive history of Zimbabwe’s women movement is still to be
written its evolution has been partially documented in Shereen Essof’s Shemurenga: The Zimbabwe Women’s Movement
1995-2000. This article assesses the
‘success’ that the women movement has achieved by shining light on women
representation in the political terrain especially in the institutions of
government. While there has been
progress this article observes women still face extensive gender based barriers
in accessing political power and that cultural constraints still pervade the
socio-economic system pressing constraints on women’s access to and control of
resources, visibility and participation in social and political affairs.
Executive, Legislature
and Judiciary Women Representation: Is it tokenistic?
There are two related questions we need to confront; firstly what is the
numeric representation of women in institutions that govern society? Secondly
is the representation effective or just tokenistic? Here I am more concerned
with ‘substantive representation’ which is distinguished as concerned with
advancing women’s policy preferences and interests. It underlines the
importance of involving women in policy making because women play a crucial
role in developing meaningful gender mainstreaming strategies that focus on
gender equality. It is important to note
that women are not not significantly (numerically) represented within the
executive arm in Zimbabwe.
There has been been a very small almost insignificant appointment of
women to the Cabinet and it seems this is done as a practice of silencing them
and those that area appointed seem to be restrained by a ‘patronage politics’
meaning they hardly introduce radical feministic policies because it increases
the risk of being sidelined in future cabinet nominations.
It seems while the ruling elites are happy to have women as voters they
are not very keen on having the same women lead political parties and or the
state proportionately to the size of their population. The effect is such that powerful state and
party positions are associated with men and not women.
Currently Zimbabwe has a President supported by two Vice-Presidents none
of which are women. Out of the cabinet 26 are male and only 3 are women; of the
270 seats in the National Assembly 184 are men and only 84 are women; in the
Senate out of 80, 38 are women and 42 are men and out of the 10 provincial
minsters 4 are women. On the other hand, gender distribution within the judiciary
seems more balanced. This could be attributed to efforts being made by the
European Union funded International Commission Jurist (ICJ) to reinforce
judicial reforms to guarantee access to justice and the rule of law.
At another level there is notable male headed militarization of
government institutions probably to wield political power around the executive
and weed out any possible ‘opposition’ supporters. These former military
personnel are considered disciplined, loyal and trained to preserve the
incumbent’s hold onto power.
Importance of the 2013 constitutional legal quota
provision
Zimbabwe has a new constitutional legal quota system that reserves 60
seats for women distributed among political parties on a proportional
representation basis. The core assumption is that numbers matter and that an
increase in women’s descriptive (numerical) representation in parliament will
translate into an increase in substantive representation of women interests or
concerns.
Firstly,
women
constitute half the population and have the right to half the seats (Justice
Argument). Women
constitute 6,738 877 (52%) of the country’s 12.9 million population while the
male population is 48% (6 234 931) according to the 2012 census report by the
Zimbabwe Statistics Agency (ZIMSTATS, 2012). In some
instances, educated women’s proficiencies or credentials are trivialised
comparable to male counterparts (Election Resource Centre 2013:15).Secondly, Women have different
experiences (biological or social) that ought to be represented (the experience
argument). In line with this argument women should enter into
positions of power because they will engage in politics differently based on
concrete lived realities. Thirdly,
women politicians represent women’s goals, concerns and interests (supposed). The
supposition is that women articulate and represent other women’s needs,
sensitivities and interests in a better way than man. This corrects the
societal constructed patriarchal bias. Fourthly,
democracy argument, equal representation enhances democratisation
(UN Women 2005:8). All citizen participation is the cornerstone of
representative democracy.
Critique of the quota system
This constitutional provision might significantly limit women from
becoming directly elected as representatives of constituencies. Political parties are likely to adopt a
tendency to choose male candidates for the elected constituency seats in the
national assembly, because female candidates have a greater chance of election
as party-list candidates. This
relegates female politicians to the women's wings of the political parties. These
female composed associations are used to chant party slogans at political
rallies or national events, an extremely offensive positioning of women in
politics in modern politics.
Obstacles to women’s
political participation in Zimbabwe
Women as political
actors have a price to pay for participation. They face negative sexual or
political labelling, socioeconomic challenges, coupled with ideological,
psychological and media influenced barriers. Zimbabwe has a masculine dominated
model of politics. Male supremacy informs the current succession pattern within
the incumbent ZANU PF party. Literally, women lack political power in political
parties’ nomination processes. Despite insinuations that the First Lady, Grace
Mugabe is being strategically positioned for the prime head of state position,
probability is low because she does not have ‘liberation struggle credentials’. Political campaigning requires time and
money yet women are committed to other societal ascribed roles and have a lower
economic status. This inevitably demotes the status of women in politics. Furthermore,
there are ideological and psychological, cultural – patriarchal structures, traditional roles ascribed to women
unconsciously erodes women’s confidence and capabilities within the political
realm. This is reinforced by the perception that politics is a dirty game hence
should be the prerogative of men only. In contemporary political settings,
media influences public opinion and consciousness.
Conclusion: Beyond Mere Numbers
Given the status quo, the increase of women in Zimbabwe’s parliament has
failed to strongly challenge the executive and legislature on gender equality
because it remains a mammoth task to raise women’s concerns in male dominated
institutions.
While the quota system is meant to
increase the percentage of women in parliament, the appointed women vote for
policies on a patronage basis at the expense of a real women’s agenda because
they fear victimization or being whipped into line by their political parties.
Substantive representation has also not been realized because women are
appointed to non-strategic ministerial positions such as women’s affairs or
social services. Strategic ministries such as defence, finance and health have
historically been led by men.
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