She uttered the exact thoughts I had been battling with a few minutes
before she came in. I was wondering why we had very, very few women sitting up
at the tables, why there were lesser skirts in the boardrooms and why the
legislative arm of government had just a handful of women who stand up to
decision making processes that affect their sons and daughters and loved ones.
On my desktop wallpaper, there’s this treasured picture I have showing
the 5 presidents of the countries that make up BRICS- Brazil, Russia, India,
China and South Africa. The only woman in the picture is the president of
Brazil… seeing her made me proud, you know, at least, there was a woman in the
picture, but I still silently wondered and asked myself,’Similolu, where
are the women?’
Just as I was ruminating on these thoughts, I was invited to be the
compere at NACOSS (Nigerian Association of Computer Science Students)
National Convention. The convention was centered on increased female
participation in IT. All the presentations were laced with facts that proved
that things were way more terrible than I thought - the number of females
involved in IT is very low… In Africa, it is ‘lowerly ’ lower than I could have
conceived in my wildest imaginations. Still boils down to the same question;
Where are the women?
The question is this, where are the women?
Am I supposed to be somewhere at the back, far at the back because I am
a woman?
Am I supposed to live an average life because I’m a woman?
Do life pursuits and aspirations end when a woman gets married?
Is Being Female= Being Passive?
Why should I be quiet when decisions that affect me and my future
children are being made?
Why?
************
(This is first in a series of about 4 posts. Let’s reason together. I’ll
give replies to all comments and I’m promising objectivity-NO skewedness to the
left or right to support any gender)
