#PovertyisSexist: The Nigerian Story.
On the Panel of 2018 International Women`s Day Celebration
By Chimezie Anajama
A week to March 8, 2018, on Thursday, late in the morning, in the midst of work-laden office environment, preparations were on-going for two engagements of the office in the following week; a young volunteer strolled in, with an immaculate slightly puffy white envelope — invitation. It was meant for my boss, to come discuss on the ONE campaign theme — Poverty is Sexist. Young volunteer was part of the Local Organizing Committee. It was a one-day conference targeting 200 young women and basic education students in Akwa Ibom State, organized by the ONE and AU youth Ambassador, in Uyo, to commemorate the 2018 International Women`s Day. Within earshot, I saw the gnawing expression on my boss` face. The way his mouth twitched and the dimming of his eyes. Disappointment. The day of the conference collided with another engagement of his. It was pretty serious, but being a man that is endeared to efforts of youth, his expression changed to intense thought. Trying to see how to re-fix his tight itinerary to accommodate the new request.
Poverty is Sexist. Poverty, sex, society, and gender roles. These words kept on playing in my mind. The strength of the theme was just too immense. “Chimezie go. Chimezie go. Go and sell yourself. All those knowledge that you`ve gathered on gender issue, go and sell yourself. You can pull this off. A day is enough for you to put up a paper on this. You know gender issues. You`re a Sociologist. You live gender. The women in your life live gender disparity. You are watchful of your environment. And you are not entirely bad at public speaking”, my self-voice persuaded.
A minute gone. Two minutes…
“Let me represent you sir.” I heard myself say to my boss and the young volunteer.
Both looked at me. Young volunteer was expressionless. His friend had praised me endlessly earlier in his presence which I felt was patronizing at that moment. It seemed those praises worked on him and eased him up on my capacity. My boss smiled, relief painted on his face, and patted him, “She knows the topic more than I do, It is her turf, let her do it.”
That settled. Officially, I was a panelist, representing my boss, who has a well-verse resume and reputation in the development sector. Worse, he is a bigger and one of the most wanted masquerades in the small and growing space of development sector in Uyo and Akwa Ibom state. Something like butterfly was doing me in the tummy. It can`t be tension, I reassured myself. Then what? Probably fear of wearing the big boss shoe and the weight of the organization. I have accepted. No rescinding.
Following week
In the heat of the preparations for our two coming engagements with diverse stakeholders and citizens of Akwa Ibom on governance, citizen participation, public service delivery and open Budget regime, I kept on peeping into articles about “poverty is sexist”. I consulted World Bank resources in our office library since hindsight and previous readings had showed their extensive research on issue of poverty in Africa, with serious component of gender mainstreaming. I consulted Boho, ONE website, courted close friends opinions, academic researches, articles, even Twitter hashtags (I have been involved in a number of twitter chats on economic livelihood and gender, acting as an assistant content researcher and chat manager to my boss). My mind kept playing flashbacks on all examples I had seen and I could use. The fair mid-30 years old woman on my street, ageing daily with the burden of economic responsibilities of her two families — family of procreation (with two kids and a husband) and orientation (her siblings and a sick father) — despite maintaining a petty food vendor business. The women I meet daily involved in petty trading, circled at former First Bank roundabout at Plaza, Uyo. Their lives had waste drops of factors that promote sexist poverty that finally led them to the bottom of economic ladder; or the teen street girls that I work with whose economic experiences were thrice worse than their male counterpart.
In the panel session
March 8th. The morning of the day. Thick clouds canopied the sky. The morning was gloomy, like my face, as I cat-eyed the liquid mascara on my eye lashes; I realized that I would be beaten by rain on my way to the venue. But by dint of Luck and hurry, I made it to the venue unscathed, escaping with few drops of rain on bright multi-coloured Ankara jumpsuit which dried off before the event began. The panel had more women than men — 5 women and 2 men — all drawn from diverse backgrounds — development, Sciences, Social Sciences, media, education, and entrepreneurship. I looked like the youngest in their midst — and thankfully, no one pointed it out when I stubbornly stuck to my unpopular opinions in the panel session. The participants did not disappoint. More girls in the room than the boys. Teachers, older youths, teens, men, and lots of uniformed students and school children, all seated, as the panelists began knowledge cascading on them.
Surprises:
- The over 200 participants, mainly school girls, were asked “How many were in STEM classes in their schools?” (Nigerian senior secondary classes are divided according to Arts, Commercial, Sciences, and Social Sciences classes) “How many wanted to be Engineers, Architects etc?”
In response, the raised hands from the audience grew thin to the first question, thinner to the second (not up to 4 hands raised) and none in the last. The presenter, a practicing female engineer speaking on climate change and role of women in its mitigation, was speechless. I was speechless. And the audience cared less, chatting away, not realizing that that was a quick baseline study to gauge the interest of the girl-child towards STEM professions in Uyo. There was indeed a problem with female participation in STEM, I noted.
2. As much as I was surprised by the above, the STEM conversation evoked memories of my secondary school career-days filled with display of arrogance of some professions that made other professions look irrelevant. Those days, professions like medicine, engineering, law, banking, accountancy, and other professions that average Nigerian parent revere were thrown around as if they were the only existing and worthy career paths in life. It took self-restraint to not pick the microphone and tell the kids that STEM professions were not the only career paths in the world. I am not STEM, and I am not yet dead (lol, STEM envy). But importance of education was made paramount by all resource persons.
Poverty is Sexist Findings
These findings are the culmination of my earlier research and the contributions of the panelists.
Factors responsible
· Pattern of girl-child socialization as a direct impact of culture and tradition in Nigeria: Many cultures in Nigeria rarely indoctrinate girls about the importance of economic independence early in life, unlike the male child. The social template of parents in socializing the girl-child is birth, family orientation (where she is tamed to be a great housewife and mother only), formal education (thankfully, especially for those in Southern Nigeria), NYSC (optional) and marriage. There is no place for girl-child independence before marriage, like be her own woman, be economically empowered, have a life, and have a say in her life etc. It is part of the reasons for intense pressure for marriage by families of spinsters. Independence for an unmarried lady is an abomination and not part of greater society`s will. In addition, many girls, as they grow to adulthood, are spoon-fed, till they are sent off to their husband houses. So how does one not expect poverty to happen? In a 2014 survey by the duo of Glory E. Edet and Nsikak-Abasi A. Etim of University of Uyo (Nigeria), among 60 households in South-South Nigeria (including Akwa Ibom State), it was gathered that there was considerable gender differentiation in the ownership of land, home, business and savings. The degree of ownership in consumer durables in households revealed that women in most households own appliances associated with domestic labour (no pay and unaccounted for in the GDP) whereas men have a near monopoly in the ownership of transport vehicles, refrigerators, and media sets (access to information).
· Education in many Nigerian Universities is morre theoretical than skill-based which negatively rubs off on “educated” young wives, fresh from universities. Thus, they are left with theory education (that lacks economic value). It further aggravates their economic situations in marriage. Leaving them poor and vulnerable amidst their husbands` plenty. Thus, many girls in Nigeria wear the tag of being educated, but they are not educated in the kind of quality education that would give them financial freedom via skills. Men face similar challenge, but they have the leverage of their childhood socialization that positively reinforced financial freedom on them. Therefore, after-school or while-in-school, they are skilling-up, making up for that deficiency and earning a living.
· Religion: it is a major principal culprit in Poverty is Sexist argument in Nigeria, especially for women in marriage.
· Less political representation and deliberate gender policies: as seen in national and state parliaments and government spaces where proposed policies about women empowerment and development are quashed before the gavel hits “nay”.
· Less access to economic opportunities: many of the female panelists noted that in their careers, they work twice hard to be given same opportunities as their male colleagues. They are also the most disposable in their jobs, with less job security. In household setting, the girl-child self-development bear the first touch of the impact of family`s economic setback. She is withdrawn from school first, given off in marriage, in order to improve the family economy. In the informal economy and agricultural sector of Nigeria, women form the bulk of the workforce, and are mostly found at the base of the economic growth pyramid where less profits, growth and opportunities reside.
Possible Solutions:
· Scaling up of the education quality of the girl-child: Nigeria currently has over 10.5 million out of school children with 60 per cent being girls, according to UNICEF. Education is key in reducing gender poverty that gave birth to the Poverty is Sexist narrative. There should deliberate investment and campaigns to encourage the education of girl-child and women, with special focus on quality and skilled education that would empower them economically.
· Creation of support systems and programmes to accelerate economic activities of women: This is where I expect the partnership of government, NGOs, private and INGOs to play a huge role. A great example of this type of support is found in the Strengthening Advocacy and Citizen Engagement (SACE) project of USAID in Nigeria, running in its fifth year. One of the grantees of this project is Ugboroke Progressive Fish Farmers Association (UPFFA) in Delta state, Nigeria — a 120 member cooperative for mainly women fish farmers where they constitute over 50% of membership. With this support, imagine its impact on over 60 women fish farmers of that association over the years in terms of economic growth, sustainability and independence, which in turn trickle down in the lives of their families, children, friends, and society at large.
· Gender friendly policies in every sector of the economy: This is very crucial in the quest to reduce poverty in Nigeria where women unfortunately are the majority. These policies would protect the women workforce in these sectors and also open up the paths for increased women participation. The women and sympathizers in Agricultural sector have for years clamored for gender policy in Agriculture that would help to improve the economic status of women workforce in the sector. That has been a hard nut to crack as the government machineries have continued to play coy with that campaign.
· Involvement of women in the governance and public policy process: This has seen immense progress lately, but it is not enough. More women are needed in the governance space. More women should have knowledge of the governance and policy process in order to improve the push for the needs of women in policy-making process. The budget for example, an important policy tool, is less popular among the women folk. This is a tool that has the potential of expanding the horizon of solutions to economic challenges of women in Nigeria. But every year, the budgetary process receives fewer inputs from women, making it gender blind and little allocations are assigned to few visible challenges of women in the budget. The 2012 report of Kebetkache Women Development & Resource Centre/Oxfam on Gender Context Analysis of Budgetary and Fiscal Policy preparation and Implementation in 4 Southern states of Nigeria observed that government budget preparation and implementation remains mainly men`s affair; patriarchy in formal and formal settings, lack of awareness, poverty and inequality remain the hindrances of women in budgetary process participation; impact of budget and fiscal policies on women`s welfare, poverty reduction and inequality has been minimally modest and evasive when it comes to economic opportunities for rural women. These challenges has inspired organizations such as Policy Alert in Akwa Ibom State to begin the campaign in building the capacities of women in the budgetary process via its #EngenderBudgets campaign that would empower them to project their needs in the budgetary process at the sub-national.
Chimezie Anajama is a young sociologist, development worker and journalist-in-training. Her fields of practice include education, media, public policy, governance, social inclusion and gender relations. When she is not implementing ideas to advance her society, she can be caught content-writing. She currently lives in Uyo, Nigeria. Tweet her: @MsChimezie