Women Deserve More Than Gender Equality – _Taofeeq Idowu ABDULKAREEM

Women are people of pride, dignity, honour and respect. Women are special people of importance and value. They are also nation builders who nurture the leaders of tomorrow. Women have always been honoured right from the creation of the first human. There are great dignity and honour for women; they surely deserve all the honours being given to them.

The common notion that we all know is that “the way you dress is the way you will be addressed”, everybody must take note of that so that they can earn themselves full respect and honour. Women should be well familiar and focused with their roles, especially in grooming the future leaders. Many tributes to our women because they are our pride, they nurture rulers and educate them duly. They are change makers and ambassadors of positive things. A whole Surah of the Qur’an was named “The Women” and that is Chapter 4.

Everyone has his/her role in the society; men are the managers of several affairs while women are the nurturers of these managers. They build them and equip them with values necessary for growth and development in all affairs. They are great advisers for men, arguably, every successful man has his wife as his greatest adviser.

It is rather painful when people don’t know their responsibilities. Allah says in the Holy Qur’an, Chapter 4 verse 34 “Men are in charge of women by [right of] what Allah has given one over the other and what they spend [for maintenance] from their wealth. So righteous women are devoutly obedient, guarding in [the husband’s] absence what Allah would have them guard….”.

This clearly states how men are in charge of finances and administration. Women are nation builders, great advisers, motivators and champions that make the world better.

Having said all these, women are great people with roles and responsibilities but their roles should not in any way be confused with that of men. Men are administrators but everyone should command respect and bring honour and pride to themselves and their people no matter the gender. Women are also administrators but it should be noted that their administrative roles are different. We must make sure that their rights is not just protected but their rights should be well and adequately respected and guided.

There are a lot that women can do to be good ambassadors of themselves; by getting educated, becoming professionals in their careers, being guardians of their children, change makers, positive thinkers, advisers amongst others. Summarily, women deserve more than gender equality. Why gender equality? is that not a misconception or misplaced priority on our parts. Women deserve something huge, I mean extraordinarily big; which is GENDER EQUITY.

Gender Equity is what we should be clamouring for, females deserve kind and humble treatment. Equity is simply fairness, women should be treated with fairness. The only way of being fair is recognizing where they are needed, women are important but they have peculiarities. As such they need to be treated with fairness, impartiality and true justice.

Gender equality is not always fair, if only we know. Taken for instance, the Bill to “provide for special seat for women in the National and State Assembly”. Does this bill in any way suggest equality; if there should be equality, then men and women can seat anywhere without a special seat for anyone.

I ALSO AGREE THAT THIS BILL IS NEEDED BUT MIND YOU, IT SUGGESTS GENDER EQUITY WHICH I ALWAYS PREACH. Women need special treatment because they are special, they need to be accorded the titles and positions they deserve without overstressing them. Women are our queens, princesses and empresses; they shouldn’t be allowed to stress themselves like kings, princes and emperors.

Every gender has its role which should be guided jealously. We clamour for female inclusion in nation building as one of our major advocate for gender equity. We therefore call the women to break the bias of maltreatment and call for equity.