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Zim women: what emancipation?
Janah Ncube
May 08, 2005

http://www.thestandard.co.zw/read.php?st_id=2302

ZIMBABWE turned 25 on 18 April 2005. Personally, I did not celebrate our Independence Day. I am ashamed that my disenchantment and despondency led me not to even take a moment of silence out of that day, in memory of those who did so much for Zimbabwe's independence.

I certainly regret that deeply, for every Zimbabwean should remember the thousands of women and men who were maimed and scarred for life and the thousands that paid with their lives, the dearest price for an ideal they had never tasted; an ideal they never got to witness. For Zimbabwe to exist, many fearlessly, ferociously and relentlessly fought colonial and racial forces that kept black people subservient, extremely dominated, persecuted, discriminated against and very poor.

White supremacy was conquered and self-determination was realised. This day brought about high hopes not just for Zimbabweans but also for all black people all over the world. Having dreams of success, dignity, respect and wealth ceased to be a luxury but became a right and a motivation for black people.

The ability and right to aspirations about self-maximisation, based on the fact that finally, black people in this new country could have their interests prioritised was unleashed.

The boundaries set by racial and colonial subjugation were eroded; the access to wealth denied to black people both literally and metaphorically was suddenly theirs. All Zimbabweans, white and black, old and young must, always remember those who died for the liberation of this country. Their lives, their blood, their broken limbs and scars must forever be hailed as trophies and badges of honour, treasured by each of us.

I feel strongly about our liberation struggle. I am aware of the high cost, which our elders paid and yet, I still did not celebrate. A quarter of a century later, after five post-colonial governments led by black proliferators of the liberation struggle, why is it that freedom is still an ideal for me and has remained only in my imagination? Why does freedom sound like a big and abstruse word and its concepts seem like an unattainable utopia?

Why should I, a young black woman, who did not grow up under the Ian Smith regime but under the Mugabe regime still search relentlessly for freedom? Indeed, so much was sacrificed for me, my generation, future generations and certainly life today is way better off than it was in the days of my mother's growing up but I do not identify the notions of freedom in what I am told about my freedoms, rights and in the opportunities open to me.

Freedom is about being independent, autonomous and having the right and capacity to exercise choice. It means not being subjected to external restraints, not controlled or bound, having full rights and full access. On a day-to-day basis it is about being able to go where I want when I want, speak my mind, do what I want, make rules about my own life, not being under the control of anyone and above all it means no one owns me or has rights over me, which I have not willingly given.

So while the black men of Zimbabwe won the ability to determine the paths and destinations of their lives, the women did not. While the men of Zimbabwe embarked on self-maximisation and pursued self interests the women were allowed minor accesses, our parameters were widened a little bit more but the controls remained, the freedoms denied. While the black men's chains were broken, the woman's were replaced by a leash, so she could move but only so far. Sure, she could grow in her aspirations but only to a specific extent. Indeed she could choose but only if the men that own her approved.

The reason why black people rejected out rightly the Bishop Abel Muzorewa government was its lack of autonomy, its pseudo-independence and the fact that the black leadership were a mere cosmetic facade of the Smith regime. On the surface it looked black, whilst in actual fact it was the white, colonial Smith regime in charge.

Smith thought that merely having a black person being called prime minister would pacify the quest for freedom. History bears testimony to how wrong he was. Real freedom is not skin deep and real freedom is blind to gender. The freedoms gained in 1980 certainly saw the "Muzorewarisation" of the women of this country. We are free at the behest of men be they our fathers, brothers, uncles, husbands, neighbours, bosses or political leaders.

The phallocentrism that our institutions and systems are founded on has spun a web of severe and seemingly perpetual subservience, exploitation, persecution, discrimination and powerlessness that has continually left women in this country poor no matter what station they find themselves in.

Indeed the skilfully played politics of accommodation has created perceptions of some inclusion; some gains and progress as we have seen laws being changed to declare women as adults who now have responsibility over themselves. We have seen laws that make it illegal to pay women less than men or even to penalise women in the workforce of the country for bearing children .

With every election since 1980, there have been a handful of women 'allowed' into Parliament and even into cabinet but the strings of patronage and the chains of patriarchy hamper them and render their impact lukewarm. These changes are just tinkering with the edges, which has been granted after much fighting, threatening and negotiations and have not yet delivered true freedom for women.

The Zimbabwe we live in is very much like the Rhodesia we abandoned. It is still a place where power, wealth and dignity are unevenly and illegitimately distributed. In the Rhodesian era, the distribution was pronounced first in racial tones then in gender tones. In Zimbabwe they are more pronounced first in gender tones then in class tones - the very evils our liberation struggle was avowed to abolish. Racism forced black people to prove to white people that they were fully human with equal intellect and capability and the current gender discrimination has placed the same demands on women. Why is it women are still negotiating their legitimacy in Zimbabwe?

As a black Zimbabwean woman I am not free to talk about the horrors done to me and many other girl children by the men who should protect us, our fathers, our brothers, our relatives. When they molest us and rape us somehow society has a way of blaming the way we sit, dress or for being alone in a room, at home with a man whom you should be most safe with. I am not free to say what I think about the man who has run down a country he suffered much torture and incarceration for, who has led a political party and system responsible for the systematic rape and torture suffered by hundreds of women just in the last five years alone.

No, I am not free to speak. As a woman I am not free from male ownership. Unless my father is paid some money by another male, my family and society will reject me if I chose to get married without this bride price paid for me. After he has paid for me, I should, of course, endure it if he beats me up, rapes me, molests our daughters. Who do I turn to, my father?

The man who has amassed wealth from this very man? If I chose to live with a man without him paying for me, should I make the mistake of dying, the poor guy still has to pay for my corpse before my family agrees to attend my funeral. Even in death, I am still good for money. No, I am not free.

If I walk from one place to another in the evening in streets of Harare I am afraid. I am afraid that my gender communicates to the thief that I am weak so he can attack me. It communicates to any male that I am available for sex with him by force with or without a monetary exchange, it communicates to the police that I am soliciting sex for money so they must arrest me. No, I am not free!

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