Over 6,000 delegates from all over the world are in Kigali to attend the very first Women Deliver conference on the African continent. That\'s right, 6,000 men, women, and non-binary folk. That\'s the highest number of guests that any single event has brought to Rwanda, even more than the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting that took place in June 2022. So, even beyond the content of the conference (more on that later), this event further proves that the government was correct to invest heavily in Rwanda\'s capacity to host events of all sizes. I\'m pretty sure that local hoteliers (and Airbnb hosts) are laughing all the way to the bank.
Moving beyond the MICE tourism component of Women Deliver, I found the panel conversation at the opening ceremony on Monday extremely stimulating. My main takeaway from the conversation between the founder of SOLA (School of Leadership Afghanistan), Shabana Basij-Rasikh, and the presidents of Hungary, Ethiopia, and Senegal, was the concept of \'space\'.
I\'m no expert in feminist language, so forgive me if this comes out wrong. What I understand when women are agitating for \'space\' is that they are, in fact, agitating for their full humanity.
They are agitating for their right to \'be\'. Their right to be heard, to be protected, to be respected, to be allowed to live their lives unimpeded, and to be allowed to make mistakes (and recover from them). All rights that we men, on the whole, take for granted.
Granting women this space should be the easiest thing in the world, whether at a micro level or a macro level. It creates, in my view, the best outcomes for individuals, families, and societies, but it is easier said than done.
Two days ago, a local media personality attending the Women Deliver conference took a photo of the free sanitary pads that were being handed out to attendees and posted the photo on Twitter, asking whether he should wear a pad for a day and write about his experience. Unsurprisingly, this created a bit of backlash.
In my view, the majority of the commentary under his tweet (which he eventually deleted) was grounded in the view that he had attempted to enter a space that he was not privy or invited into. The challenges that women face around menstruation are well known. Whether it is period poverty or the physical, mental, and emotional toll that menstruation causes, there is a real socioeconomic effect to this biological function. So, by blithely tweeting that, what he inadvertently did was insert himself into a very serious discussion with real-life consequences for millions of people. If we, men, are to join a serious conversation that affects millions of women, the least that we can do is treat the topic with tact and sensitivity.
So, when we speak about \'giving\' space as men, we should also understand how not to \'take up\' space. I understand that it will be a long process for many of us to unlearn a lot of the things that we\'ve normalized. But I am confident that it is doable, especially if we approach it through the lens of our shared humanity.
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I will be intently following the conversations that are taking place this week because I am confident that many of the solutions to the challenges that we face as a society can be found by just actually listening to women. The answers are there; just listen. If you can\'t listen to the conversations in person, follow the conversations online. They are extremely rich and edifying. And then, more importantly, put what you hear and learn into practice.
The writer is a socio-political commentator
