IS WOMEN IN-POWERMENT THE ONLY WAY OF EMPOWERMENT?

Gender inequality has been an issue in both the local scene and the international arena with women fighting for equal opportunities with men if not greater ones. Looking at women in powerful political seats is the assurance we need to prove that women in Africa and Kenya to be specific are really being empowered.  In the new Kenyan constitution women are further empowered with 47 assured women representative posts in the senate and a few other elective posts. Such seats taken up by women such as Millie Odhiambo are some of the testimonials we have of empowered African women, however a conversation with a group of friends gets me thinking, is this the only way to empower women? Is this even empowering women? And I ask myself what exactly is empowering women? Think of the woman in Turkana south with about 4 children how do you empower this woman to make them self-reliant, to make them know the difference between arrogance and assertiveness, to make her able to provide for her children in the right manner. Maybe answering such questions is our way of finding out how to empower women.

         Giving  women many politically assured seats is not the way to empower them, what we need is  to make women people , by people I  mean that awareness should be created to let it be known that women also have a voice and don’t need  posts reserved for them because that’s not what it takes for them to be empowered. Let’s be realistic all this posts reserved are they left for us  because we now have gender equality or is it because we just want to harsh up the talk concerning gender discrimination? Political seats are not the only form of empowerment or are they? How many political seats are there in one government? Are they even enough for half the population of Kenyan women? No. what we need is a system to get to each and every woman, make them believe in themselves then push the rest of the population forward.

      But then again these reserved seats can be a boost to the woman, an avenue to use to push other women forward. An avenue to start projects that will make women self-reliant. A way to show other women that they to have a voice and its time they showed it. These seats may not necessarily be for all women but the whole idea is to put a fraction of the women out there to help others and to implement policies in favor of women.

   Are we as Africans using in-powerment to empower women?, is it working?  And is it only way we can use to reach out, to make our nations stronger?