Women, Women, Women

I decided to venture down to the nice bar down the street last night called... I don’t remember... Castlemans? Cattleman’s? Clydsdale? Sea Breeze cafe? Anyways. Took my book (currently reading James Orbinski’s An Imperfect Offering) and was excited to try Ghana’s famous STAR beer.

The beer was nice. Light taste with a hint of cider.

As is expected in these scenarios, a conversation was struck up with another patron of the bar - a man named Steve.

“Teeve?” I asked.

“Teeve? No Steve.” He said.

“Oh Steve!”

“What kind of a name is Teve?” He laughed.

“Well, like Steve but without the ‘Ssss’ part.” Touche.

It didn’t take long before Steve and I entered into a fairly heated political discussion about women in politics (though it remained in good fun!). Why heated? Because when I found out he was a political science student with aspirations to work in government, I mentioned my work at Abantu for Development - the NGO I work for that advocates for increased participation of women in decision-making positions. His response?

“Women do NOT belong in politics!”

*Record scratch stop* Excuse me?

I asked him “why not?” in a less polite way and we had a fairly frank discussion about gender and politics. He truly didn’t believe it was in women’s nature to be in roles of political leadership. He believed they can’t see past their own issues, and aren’t strong enough to fight on the real issues. They don’t know how to influence the people.

I told him that women are over 50% of the population, and should have equal say in how a country is run. The policies made in government likely affect women more than men as they live lives that cross through many social spheres and sectors - holding jobs, raising a family, primary caretakers etc.

Steve promises me that he respects women (“honestly, I LOVE women”), but the women who have been in parliament in Ghana have made stupid decisions. I asked him who and he said he doesn’t remember her name. Fair enough, I can’t remember the name of the bar.

Steve’s arguments about women’s inability to handle politics could have fallen straight out of the mouth of a curmudgeonly old grandfather (not my own of course... some other puritan breed of grandfather) - they’re soft, they don’t get things done, they rely on men to communicate etc.

I asked Steve if perhaps he thought women were that way because of the men (*cough* like him *cough*) who meet them with such a crapola attitude (Yes, I may have actually used the word “crapola”).

We talked a lot more about the issue, and I tried... HARD... to sympathize with his views. Turns out Steve was quite annoyed with how the women in his political science class treated him.

I shifted the conversation over to something we could agree upon. We entered a long duet-style rant about foreign aid policies and its poisonous mixture with corrupt politicians in African governments. The conversation made us both a bit sour and we held a brief silence. It seemed as though we were both stuck, meditating on how scary it is that organizations like the IMF and the WB, along with the world’s richest nations and many of Africa’s governmental leaders are responsible for such vast tragedies. Tragedies that do not harm those in charge but the masses.

“You know what they all have in common?” I asked.

“What?”

“They’re all men.” I smiled.

I can already here in the distance, the Gender Studies department at every university typing their criticism of all the above statements - including my own (women are certainly not exempt from being corrupt oppressors of their own). So I will leave it here.

To end on a happy note, I will soon post a video of Briana, the 1.5 year old daughter in my host family, dancing to some Ghanaian tunes! Though I only recorded about 2 minutes worth, she did this for a good hour and a half. This video was shot in a low light so the quality isn’t that great. And it’s going to take about 4 hours to upload so stay tuned!