In traditional African societies, nay Nigeria, gender roles and expectations are clearly defined. For instance, in many parts of Nigeria, women’s roles are relegated to the kitchen, child bearing, keeping the home and meeting the needs of her spouse, while the men are expected to provide, as well as provide and shelter security for the family.
In these traditional social milieu, the girl child’s worldview was the home, which explains why exposure to any form of schooling was taboo or anathema, hence the argument: “why should I send her to school when she will ultimately end up in a man’s home?”
On the flipside, the male child enjoyed the benefits of global exposure via education. He is allowed to explore and conquer his environment and often made to erroneously believe that women are at his beck and call or worse still worthless tools to be used and dumped.
But those days are long gone and times have changed.
Today, the world is now shifting emphasis to gender development and how this can contribute to national development. As defined by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, “gender is a socially constructed definition of women and men. It is not the same as sex (biological characteristics of women and men) and it is not the same as women. Gender is determined by the conception of tasks, functions and roles attributed to women and men in society and in public and private life”.
Similarly, the World Development Report (WDR) 2012, defines gender as “socially constructed norms and ideologies which determine the behaviour and actions of men and women. The Gender approach is distinct in that it focuses on women and men and not on women in isolation”.
An ex-ray of the World Development Report notes that for nations to develop, issues concerning and affecting male and female must be factored into development plans and initiatives whereby both men and women are empowered to better society, communities and organisations. Gender allows for a clear gender analysis, which helps to identify, understand, and redress inequities based on gender development initiatives hence sound inclusive development.
Aside these, the World Development Report notes that gender will enhance social and economic impact of development, increase possibilities for successful action in development interventions, allow for a more efficient use of resources in development, and more importantly, become central to the development process since the world is focusing on development as a means of alleviating world poverty, and removing particularly gender inequalities, which will give the world a better chance to develop.
Again, the World Development Report is in tandem with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development comprising 17 Sustainable Development Goals, 169 targets and about 300 indicators with a broader agenda providing an opportunity for focusing on women, girls, children and persons with disabilities in any targeted development interventions.
As we can see, the world is on a fast-track to bridge the gender divide. Nigeria should not be left because it is no longer fashionable to relegate the female to the backwoods particularly in an age where the female gender has shown that they can stand their own in all fields of human endeavour. Interestingly too, focusing on the female does not detract from focusing on the issues that appeal to the male gender, rather gender in the sense it is now globally discussed, aims at getting both the male and female gender to see each other as partners in fostering the development of their communities, societies and organisations.
It is our candid opinion that across all levels of government in Nigeria – local, state and federal, policies and laws must begin to foster gender inclusion and equality of genders in governance and related issues. The days are long gone when the male gender arrogate national development initiatives to themselves. As we can see, the female gender has arrived and not willing to shift grounds.
National development should be the business of all and that includes men as well as women.
