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Bongiwe Nkomazana
WE Africans are proud of our traditions and while other countries are fast shifting theirs to fit into a modern setting, Africa and Zimbabwe in particular have held on to most of their cultural beliefs and stand by them.

As much as people have been getting married in a white dress in a church, they have also been going the traditional route of lobola and ukucolwa which is Ndebele for a ceremony in which a goat is slaughtered and its bile is smeared on the bride’s feet as a way to welcome her into her husband’s family.

Talking to friends in the diaspora or even watching shows from the West, I have realised how no fuss is made as to whom does this and that in the household. If a father is able, he will cook and bathe the kids. The roles of men and women are very much defined in Zimbabwe.

I will give you the example of the two gentlemen I met at a farm I went to the other day.

As we spoke to them, I made a comment on how they needed to buy brooms to sweep their surroundings. Unmarried, probably aged between 19 and 21, both expressed how sweeping is for women and that they had no time for it.

This, coming from young boys who had no wives even just made me wonder if our traditions and culture that we stand by are in fact the driving force behind gender inequality.

Think about it, young men, whom one would think are more modern and at least have an idea on gender inequality would rather live in dirt than reduce themselves to a woman’s level by sweeping. It was a metaphor for patriarchy if you ask me, to show how early it is embedded in our minds that whatever duties a woman does are unimportant and easy.

Already, this mentality has men placing themselves on a pedestal as does patriarchy. So patriarchy is a system in which men have all the power and women are largely excluded from it. Sounds familiar? The normalisation of this set up in our communities has all of us believing that men are better leaders and, therefore, not questioning or even contesting for leadership roles as women.

I remember watching one of the news stations and someone from the African National Congress just said it openly that South Africa was not ready for a female president and at that time Dr Nkosazana Zuma was a candidate for the party presidency. She qualified on paper and hence had the potential to lead the country well however, because she carries the two X chromosomes, that would not be happening.

Mothers all over Zimbabwe are popular for waking their daughters up in the wee hours of the morning and expecting them to go to bed last. This is only because this is what they were taught a woman does. She wakes up before everyone else and prepares their bath water, clothes and breakfast while they continue to enjoy restful sleep.

During the day, she is at her day job like her male counterparts and will literally slave away after work making sure that her husband is fed and comfortable like she is robotic with no feelings of exhaustion. If she does not meet this criterion then she is failing in her womanly/wifely duties. If a man dives straight into bed after work it’s “oh shame man he is so tired, let him sleep”. Is this fair? Be honest. Is it our culture that calls the men to pay the bride price that makes them feel like they have bought a life-long servant? What was the reasoning behind lobola/roora though? I would like to believe that it was not put in place as a transaction. It is in the things that we are so accustomed to as a society that you realise how men and women will never be fully equal.

I had a laughable yet peculiar debate with a couple of colleagues after it was explained to us that traditionally, when the man of the house dies, he is laid to rest in the front of the house while the wife is buried at the back of the house. The reason we came up with is simple. No average guy will walk into a home, past a man’s grave to be with his widow. So, this is culture’s way of making sure that even after death, a man has some sort of hold on his wife.

The wife’s grave being at the back is culture’s way of demeaning her significance while also making it easier for a widower to remarry because his wife’s grave is out of sight and out of mind. Is it safe to say that our cultures and traditions — from having a boy child be the successor or inheritor despite having elder sisters to how it is okay customarily for a man to have whatever number of wives while a woman should be a virgin or else.

Here is a question for women. Do we even want to be equal or are we content with the status quo? I work for an organisation that interacts with rural communities on a daily basis. In the interactions, women are always seated on the floor while the men are perched on chairs. Once asked why they do not occupy the chairs too they declared that they were comfortable on their grass mats on the floor. In fact, they had a look in their eyes as if to wonder why they would even be on a chair.

Rural women enjoy their roles and take pride in carrying them out to the fullest of their abilities. From them, I have understood that sometimes gender equality does not mean that if a man throws a stone so should a woman. Men and women have their different strengths and so equality lies in the ability to choose what it is that you want to do and being given the opportunity to excel and expand in that area.

I am black, I am Zimbabwean, I am African and I am proud of my culture. This is just food for thought. Are our traditions and cultures designed in a way that oppresses women?