Kwaku Sakyi-Addo: Empowering the 21st Century woman to transform her community

Women’s empowerment: Empowering the 21st Century Woman to Transform Her Community

LEGON CENTRE FOR INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS (LECIA), UNIVERSITY OF GHANA.
Speech by
Kwaku Addo Sakyi-Addo

Why have you asked me to come and speak about women, and their empowerment? Who am I to stand before women, to tell women, to suggest to women, or even hint to women what they want? Or where and when to look, and how they might find what they want?

Who needs a lecture about women’s empowerment? Is it not I, a man? Who is it that most deserves to take a seat and shut up for once and listen? Is it not I, a man? Who then, is best qualified to stand at this lectern?

Why, have you conspired to make trouble for me?……….. !

And yet, I should thank you for this special invitation; this unique opportunity to speak to Women (and young men) on Women’s Empowerment.

I’m not an academic, and I don’t consider myself an intellectual – not in the general sense, and definitely not on gender.

I have come here simply as a boy. I come to speak as a boy and a son, carried and nurtured in the safe, secure and warm enclave of the womb with its pristine waters; I come as a hapless, helpless suckling. I stand here as my mother’s child.

I speak as the father of two daughters: A twelve-year-old at the cusp of adolescence, and already experiencing the monthly travails of all women; and an 18-month old who wakes up at least six to eight times at night…. I’m told. I thought it was just once or twice, until my wife travelled for nearly two weeks and left me with her….or her with me. The experience left me with a vastly altered definition of Strength, and who has more of it: she or I, men or women. And so I speak, too, as a husband and as a member of the truly “weaker sex;” for, that’s what we’re if we cannot even keep up with a little baby.

By the way, I met my wife Georgette here on this campus; I fell in love with her immediately on this campus; we married six years later on this campus. So I guess I can say I have a special bond with women of this campus.

What is Women’s Empowerment? What does it mean? As a subject it’s extremely broad, and can be tackled from a variety of perspectives: the political, economic, socio-cultural, even technological. And for each strand, there are tonnes of literature, with room for more research and discovery. For me, women’s empowerment means creating the environment that enables women too to dream; and having dreamt, it’s about lending a hand to enable them achieve those dreams.

Women’s empowerment means breaking taboos and questioning ancient rules that say that women must be subservient to men and submissive to husbands; it’s about removing — not just unlocking — removing the doors inside communities and within nations— the doors that lead to the inner sanctums where decisions are made in baritone, and cigar smoke wafts carelessly.

But how are we to effect change? Education. Education for girls, and education for boys! Girls in school will marry later when they’re more matured; they will have reproductive enlightenment and will better understand the physical implications and the economic responsibilities of bringing a child into the world.

With education, women will compete for jobs with men; they can beat them to second place for high office; they’ll have power in boardrooms, and they’ll have a say. Wo nsa da mu a, yenni nya wo. Eye den wobetafere wo nsa. When your fingers are in the bowl , at the very least, you will lick them. Obaa nya ne ho a, odane obarima. (When a woman is enriched, she becomes a man. For me, the essence of this proverb is: when a woman is empowered, she can do what men do.) Education delivers much more than law.

However, in our desire, our just desire to educate girls, we must not leave boys behind. Uneducated men, and unlightened husbands will be an obstruction in the path of light travelling a woman’s way. After centuries at the helm of communities and nations, uneducated and disempowered men will be as much, indeed, a worse source of social disequilibrium than disempowered women are today. We’re stronger when each is strong. But when the other is weak, then we’re only half as strong. When men and women are enlightened, they act because it is right; when they act because of the law, they do so because they’re compelled to.

Women too must know men. The empowerment you seek will be much too difficult, unless you know and understand the software that drives those that obstruct you; the architecture of those that stand in your way; the mind of your partner; the wiring of your spouse. How can we be sustainably empowered when you don’t know why boys are like that; why men do what they do? How can we hope to pour some estrogen into their testosterone and dilute it, if we don’t even know where it is stored and how to unscrew the cap.

(I’m not assuming here that men necessarily know women. But we’re discussing women’s empowerment on the assumption that it is women, not men that need to be empowered at this material time in history.)

Women must work with men. Empowering women is not a struggle for women alone to wage. It concerns men too. I’m not fighting my mother! I am because, in the first place, she was! My wife is not my rival! She’s my partner! With her, I’m fuller not emptier. I desire for my daughters to go for their dreams, way beyond my wildest imagination. I work for them, not against them! I will teach my nine-year-old son, as he grows up, to treat women as he would have me treat his mother. I will teach him to treat girls and women with the same respect he expects from the boys in the neighbourhood towards his sisters when the time comes and they start ringing our doorbell after the sun’s gone down. Work with boys; reach out to men. Don’t just compete; reach out because it’s a partnership!

Be bold! Be bold, but not offensive; assertive but not divisive; disagree but do not be disagreeable. In any process of social change we need to win numbers over to your cause. Keep your eye on the ball, hold up your dreams; be true to your principles and keep the faith but be pragmatic, not dogmatic. When you’re too close to your target to actually climb over, make a compromise, a tactical compromise. Step back and build momentum to give you heft and lift. Women’s Empowerment will not be attained in a sprint but in many many many marathons! Compromise is bravery. Stubbornness is a waste of time. Mandela chose compromise. Mugabe elected stubbornness. Whose harvest is greater?

Respect yourself. You will not be treated with respect – not by men and not by women, neither the young nor the old if you beg for material things. If your first class is tainted, you will earn a third class in the world of work. Carry yourself with poise, grace and dignity even if your background is modest… like mine. If you wish to be truly empowered, then who cares what your boyfriend drives, or who your father is or how big your auntie’s house is? The question is: what have you done for yourself and others, especially for other girls and other women? Success to significance.

Create your own beauty. Because beauty lies in the eyes of the beheld. Beauty is not the orderly organization of facial features, or the symmetrical positioning of joints, or the roundness of the buttocks. And surely it doesn’t emanate from the regular application of bleach on the cheek. Yenfa feefe enko aware. You don’t go into marriage carrying your beauty in your handbag! How would you sustain your marriage and keep your man after you’ve had a couple of children and your mid-section develops a mind of its own, your thighs are etched and scarred in stretch marks, and gravity is taking its invincible toll on your breasts? The beautiful ones have long been born, and they’re right here. Your beauty is yours to define and to own!

Be yourself. Be yourself, that’s why we each have a name. Nsem mone nti na yekyee din. Names were given out so we can hold one another to account. If you assume my identity, you assume also my responsibility. Be what sits best with your conscience.

I’m told, however, that many young women say they don’t know who they are. How can they be themselves if they’re unsure about their identity? How, then, can they go out and try to know men and work with men and be bold and be free and beautiful and strive towards empowerment when they’re conflicted about who they’re. I shall avoid a treatise on identity.

Suffice it to say that Self-knowledge comes through self-discovery. And Self-discovery does not occur as a result of a great big bang.

The Self is not a harvest of debris from an explosion; you are not scavenged in incidental bits and bobs, that then lead ultimately to a festive eureka moment accompanied by fireworks and loud hosannas, ululations and piercing vuvuzelas. Self-discovery is life-long. It comes with life’s adventures. There are hills and valleys; thrills and pain; love and heartbreak; orgasm and disappointment, magic and limp let-downs. Knowing who we are comes with time and maturity. One day, you’ll look back and wonder: “why koraa did I go out with that guy? What on earth was I thinking?” It is likely that many of you will not settle down with the guys and girls you’re dating now. Self-discovery!

Keep an open mind; do not be too quick to judge. When unsure, ask. Seek the wisdom of the elderly, men and women. They’ve travelled this road before; if you look carefully you’ll see their footprints. You may have bigger feet, but the soles of the elderly are leathery and resist the thorns. What your mother can see sitting inside a ditch you cannot see perched on top of a tree. Take the kernel of their experience, and adapt it to the imperatives of your time, your age, your century.

To the guys, do not feel threatened by strong, enlightened women. A man who’s afraid of a strong woman is a half-man; inadequate, weak and needing help. He will not find happiness in the 21st century. He will live in beer bars and drown his shame and insecurities in never-ending, rambunctious debates about premier league football.

In the 21st century, I believe that women will invade and populate boardrooms armed with laser-pointers, and gorgeous in the glow of power-point. They will command armies… to make peace. They will shape cabinet, judicial and legislative decisions, and disinfect the corridors of power with a new, wholesome governance ethos.

I believe this century will not be China’s. It will not be Brazil’s or India’s century. It will not be Africa’s century either. This is the Woman’s Century. There’s 90 years of it still to go.

Be bold! Be free! Be strong! Be beautiful! Believe!

It’s yours!

(And while at it, remember that men too cry!)

Credit: Kwaku Sakyi-Addo
Source: http://www.sakyi-addo.com/