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Monrovia — Why should women leaders tolerate being addressed as "His Excellency" or "Sir"?
This was among the questions raised by Marie Bernette, Sierra Leone's high commissioner (ambassador) in Liberia at a leadership training workshop for African women this week. The event was held to prepare for a major international women's gathering in Monrovia this weekend.
The meeting, the International Colloquium for Women’s Empowerment, Leadership Development, International Peace and Security, is being co-hosted by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and President Tarja Halonen of Finland.
Wednesday's workshop, organized by the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) and the West African Civil Society Institute (WACSI) which OSIWA founded, attracted representatives from Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, Sierra Leone, Liberia and other West African countries.
In a panel discussion, workshop participants highlighted the challenges women leaders face as a result of many in society still associating leadership only with men. Panelists expressed the hope that this will begin to change as women take leadership roles in Africa and around the world, and urged today's woman leaders to "leave the door open to the future for other women to fill.”
Senator Gloria Scott of Liberia, also the country's former chief justice, said leaders should not behave in a way that led people to say: "This is what that woman leader did, so we don't need another woman.” She described the fight for women's empowerment as a war that must take into account the next line of soldiers - a reference to the future generation of women.
Women parliamentarians stressed the need to work with their male colleagues, employing charm rather than confrontation to secure the passage of gender-sensitive bills.
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Let us start with this term "WOMEN LEADERS." Notice anything strange about it? Like how there is no correlate of MEN LEADERS to keep in company within international lexicons?
This is of course because the MEN who fostered such MALE-PRIVILEGING language in the FIRST place, and the lazy, or cowardly, or self-abnegating WOMEN who dutifully mouth this and similar SELF-ANIHILATING MONKIKERS,are...JOINTLY...assisting in its perpetuation.
Now, I can easily and immediately see what MEN have to gain by sustaining such BASICALLY NONSENSICAL DESCRIPTIONS.
For example: the use of "HE" presumably to denote BOTH "HE" and "SHE."
Only thing is, while Women (being the SILENT "SHES") are neatly DE-HUMANIZED in so doing, this strategic male-coinage nonetheless serves to selectively "include" the hitherto ABSENT-WOMAN, when it comes to those not-so-noteworthy, MALE-DOMINATED AREAS OF LIFE, for example: CRIME.
I am sure we are all familiar with the paradox of KNOWING THAT MEN FORM 99.9 PERCENT OF CRIMINALS INTERNATIONALLY, via the sustained, unchanging impirical evidence of our eyes, as PHOTOGRAPHICALLY-SUBSTANTIATED through the 99.9 percent ALL-MALE PICTORIAL ROGUES GALLERY THAT ARE THE PAPER'S CRIME PAGES.
And yet, these same MEN...who OTHERWISE pretend that the ONLY WORD THAT EXISTS IN THEIR VOCABULARY IS "HE," (..surprisingly!..) break with GRIMLY-HELD TRADITION of SPITTING-OUT "HE" "HE" HE" AND CONVENIENTLY CHOOSE INSTEAD...NOT...TO USE GENDER...AT ALL!
Instead, we hear about "MURDERS ON THE RISE FOR THE MONTH OF MARCH." Instead of the more FACTUAL and HONEST: "MALE-COMMITTED MURDERS ON THE RISE FOR THE MONTH OF MARCH."
It is therefore ironic, almost comical to hear NATIONAL LEADERS who happen to be Women, BUYING-INTO THE MALE-COINAGE THAT WAS ORIGINALLY CONSTRUCTED, AND IS TODAY STILL BEING DEPLOYED TO EXCLUDE THEM...and then snivelling and sulking about THE EXACT SAME THING, WHEN IT ARISE AS A GENERALITY!
In short: The Deliberate DE-HUMANIZATION OF WOMEN BY MEN< via MEN'S callous misappropriation of GENDER-SPECIFIC forms of address, is NOT peculiar to so-called ("Women") Leaders.
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