Unusually, this year’s International Women’s Day, March 8, 2023 intrigued me into a deeper observation about the wonderful creatures called women. They own this world! They shape it—for better or worse. For better; their role must be recognized, appreciated, supported and rewarded.
Today Uganda is relatively in a shambolic shape, mirroring the level of negligence rendered to its mothers. We are rocked in scandal after scandal. Domestic violence is at peak-levels, transferred from homesteads to fields. Torture, murder, rape and cruel treatment are but a few of the despicable norms of social engagements —at least as evidenced by trending social media contents. High and low public officials are openly sharing what would be for the destitute citizens (read corruption) and are confidently demonstrating no remorse about it, which promises continued perpetuity of the practices, unless some fundamental actions to redeem the situation are taken.
How Did We Get Here? How Can We Recover?
In social behavioral studies, the first unit of examination is the family—comprising mother, father and the progeny. Many years ago, the mother managed critical home affairs effectively turning the home into her duty office. During then, grown children mirrored in their social conduct what the mother imparted in them—and the conducts were extremely excellent. Home affairs, even unpalatable ones like disputes were bedroom affairs conducted so decently so that occupants in sitting rooms were not privy. This way, children grew up loathing practices of open disagreements leave alone violent extremism like torture and rape. A mere allegation and not actual involvement in unbecoming behavior like corruption caused sleepless nights until truth would surface. It was a perfect society then. Why? The mother perfectly managed her office, her home.
What Went Wrong?
We, the global society collectively became negligent of the female role in shaping our world. We failed to duly recognize, appreciate, support and reward the mother’s efforts in shaping and preparing the girl child for the future role of shaping the world by preparing for it an ideal baby boy who would grow to responsibly superintend over domestic and public affairs. That is the point at which we lost it—the family level.
Review Approaches
Among the many responses to the emerging social imbalances experienced by the mother, was to develop new concepts including the most popular ones such as ‘female emancipation,’ and ‘equality.’ These gained global-level attention and prominent mentions among the international development targets. Female and children issues featured in the initial ‘Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)’ of 2000-2015 and today target Number 5 of the UN-Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs; 2015-2030) that are just only seven years away to end, is focused on improvement of the female wellbeing.
Apparently, as noted already, the UN targets—ie ending domestic violence, rape, cruel treatment and other social ills against women and the girl child such as limited space for economic and education opportunities are on the increase, not the decrease. This practically tasks us; the ordinary folk, the governments and the international community (at UN level) to review the approaches on the female movement. We must find suitable ways of attracting the girl child to comfortably commit more time in the domestic space than the field and reclaim the natural setting role of owning the responsibility to shape the world by modeling an ideal baby boy upon becoming his mother. It’s a real challenge calling for total commitment and a worthwhile reward. So as the UN prepares to review gains and failures of the SDGs and as governments endeavor to improve gander-based concerns as well as society seeking to redress its imbalances; the girl child should be sensitized and incentivized from early stages to be proud of being a responsible mother to shape a responsible male citizen for a better world.
Dr Swaib K Nsereko,
Lecturer, Islamic University in Uganda (IUIU)
Mass Communication Dept
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