I have heard a number of murmurs at my place of work that too many of our new hires joining our team are young women. Some people are concerned that someone is having a soft sport for the sisters. In fact some departments are made mostly of women. However my observation has been that these women increasingly are performing quite well in the interviews. Since there is no other way to decide who joins the team, they are getting the jobs. Further more they have the papers required to land the job. Whats more, they are going on to perform quite well. Ok lets allow for the few days when am normally at a loss trying to figure out whether am dealing with the same colleague of yesterday. They always become a complete stranger to me from time to time.
It is not only in the work place where women are showing more aggressiveness and more promise. In our kids' school parents, teacher and children's meetings, its always the girls who make comments, ask questions or offer prayers at the end of the sessions. the Headmaster has been trying to encourage the boys to come up and also make comments but at that point, the boys heads are normally either bowed or they are pretending to be looking elsewhere. What is even interesting is that of the top 20 positions in class, 60% are often taken up by girls.
This situation is more pronounced in central province where even at the national exam level, girls are now scoring higher than boys. The only provinces where boys are still doing better than girls are Nyanza, North Eastern and Coast. Curiously those are also the last 3 provinces in terms of wealth distribution.
Recently we had kids in our estate organize a party. To start with , the organizers were all girls and when it came to the point of entertainment, the boys gave up their earlier decision to give us a number or a gig.
Maybe the crusaders for the girl child of yesteryears over did themselves. It may be time to start campaigning vigorously for the boy child as well. After all we need each other!
Odegle hi,
ReplyDeleteNice of your company to hire a lot of women. Thank goodness they got those positions by merit!
However, I dont agree with you that its time for the boy child. Exactly what do you mean its time for the boy child by the way? You want affirmative action for boys?
The boy child is and has always been ahead of the girl child no matter what. Just look at the ambassadorial appointments made this week by the two principals, look at our political parties, despite women having been given 30% of the positions in public appointments and political parties. They still did not get a single slot!
The reason you are seeing a difference in girls' performances is that parents are seeing girl children to also be valuable now. Girls are no longer being told to do household chores and neither do they go to the river as their brothers sit on the table to read. These days both sexes are given the same opportunities in many communities apart from the places you mentioned. You will also note that girls in these communities are still marginalised unfortunately the girl child education message has not caught on there yet.
PS: I do not support affirmative action for women so let people work for what they want. Let equality prevail.
Sorry for writing such a long comment on my first visit.
I agree with Mama, that the key thing is that the women are being hired on merit.
ReplyDeleteI quite agree on the merit and the welcome advancement of women. what is mind boggling is the apparent decline of mens'aggressiveness. even in the dating front, men are rather reserved these days. While we want the women self development to continue, we do not want to end up with cabbage for men or do we?
ReplyDeletekaribu sana Mama, your comments are welcome however long.
Odegle see? The girls have invaded your blog too! Yipee!
ReplyDeleteAti cabbage for men. that sounds baaaaad. No we do not want cabbage for men. Not cabbage. We still need the shoulders strong. But power to the girls is welcome any time as long as it's by merit. You go girls!
Maybe guys have not lost their aggressiveness after all. Maybe it's the girls who are coming with a vengeance borne of decades of playing second fiddle. The boys have to counter that and get smarter. And then we shall all live happily ever after.
The boy child being marginalized is one step to moving towards the social chaos that is the West.
ReplyDeleteCome to the States and you shall notice that women perform noticeably better than men/boys esp in academics. This has been impacting professional fields and also impacting things on a social level as men are less likely to get involved and settle down with women who are doing better than them plus the educated and well off women also dont want to get hooked up with less educated men. So you end up with a sub set of men who are making less or unemployed, not married and most prob with kids out of wedlock whose lives they are not involved in.
So it starts small like the boy child being put aside and metastasizes into the situ above....
Nicho said
ReplyDeleteYes its time for the boy child a lot has been done for the girl child at the expense of the boy child forgetting that there must be co-existence for the social balance just look at how many mixed schools were turned into girl schools? where did the boys go? if you are carjacked by these mean looking young men don't ask why its the boys you ignored at the expense of the girl
From Education Initiative for the boy child (NGO)
Mama Shira,
ReplyDeleteYah! its time we did something about the boy child.It is becoming a seroius matter.
Our girls need heads of families in future but if we do nothing now,the girls might head families.
But i think we the boys have the most chance in education
ReplyDeleteWhen your son reaches 18 you send him off to fend for himself with "vibarua". When your daughter reaches 18 you send her to the best college because she is just a girl. Then when out of frustration, you son becomes a drunkard, you curse him and throw him in prison for being "drunk and disorderly" Then when your daughter graduates from college, she gets married to a foreigner and flies away because she just cant cope with the illiterate and drunkard local men around her....Talk of brain-drain and wasted talents.... Yet this is the society that we are building.
ReplyDeletePeople are always less willing to rush to the rescue of the boy child, choosing instead to let him deal with the problem as he is a man. Therefore this results into behaviors whereby men channel their pain through other means such as drugs or alcohol,since from birth men are trained not to be communicative e.g they are hugged less and shown little affection resulting into them not opening up, this explains their in-activeness in school, by not participating they are trying to communicate that they need help, unfortunately the community does not understand their language. Also, after a war,people rush to the rescue of the girls who were raped forgetting about the boys who were sodomized, forced to take drugs, tortured and forced to be child soldiers. They are not aware of the trauma of war that often follows this boy-child. Personally I spent several nights watching out for my family's cattle from armed raiders from Uganda. I have seen war and till now the scenes come back in form of nightmares. Going to sleep is terrifying. Finally do you know the in most countries if a woman rapes a man then she has no case to answer before a court as this is not recognized as a crime?
ReplyDeleteHonestly I think we are letting the boy child down. Let us not punish men for the injustices they have committed to women over the generation in a single generation. The boy child is very importand
ReplyDeleteYes i agree the boy child has been marginalized in a way, but that doesnt mean that we put aside girls for a while,despite the woman coming out so empowerd, there are still many more bieng left behind. So yes, lets empower men, but keep up with the woman.
ReplyDelete