Perhaps we take certain things for granted. Let me make this clearer: gender equality is not the exclusion of men. In fact, when we talk about gender equality, we are talking about the equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities of women and men, girls and boys. This also applies to inclusion of women, and does not mean the extinction of the participation of men.
While I understand that we must have bias towards women to advance their inclusion, due to societal ills that are a result of past injustices, we also have the responsibility to know where to draw the line. Our society aims to make men and boys invisible, and that is not right.
Our approach to gender equality and inclusion does not have set goals, and it is misguided in many ways. For instance, we continuously talk about the historical imbalances that were caused by the apartheid government, yet we are busy creating imbalances with the current generation of boys and girls by ignoring the boys.
We need a society that is not trying to tick a political correctness box. We have to be intentional and do what is right. I know that many of us expected a different outcome for the appointment of the new chief justice.
I have no idea what were the reasons behind President Cyril Ramaphosa’s appointment of the new chief justice. However, I hope that deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo’s ascendance to the highest judiciary office is a reminder to everyone that inclusion of women is not the extinction of participation and subsequently the disqualification to appoint men in vacant positions.
Competence and quality leadership traits know no gender. Granted! It is a known societal ill that women are underrepresented in leadership positions, especially black women. Moreover, in us looking for the next president, the next chief justice, the next school principal or the next CEO in one of the JSE listed companies, we should look at their actual potential, not just gender and skin colour.
We need to see if the person ticks the right boxes for a potential leader. We must make sure that we make it easier for competent women and men to win, and not appoint men as a matter of ideology, politics or preferences. We have to be objective.
Our approach to appointing the next leader should not be: we need the first black woman or for us to look at leadership as equivalent to masculinity features. It should be about the competence, humility and integrity of the person. We should fight leadership evaluations that are subjective.
The president’s bold move to overturn the recommendation and go for someone else is a great starting point for us to reach an equilibrium. We cannot continue to sideline men and go for women on the basis that they are women and they were more impressive during the Q and A session part of their interview.
An interview is but one part of a process to assess an individual for any senior vacancy. In some instances all over the country, there are people who are brilliant in their articulation. To be more articulate than the next person is not a good enough reason to ignore the next person who may be a man; not as articulate; more experienced; a black person.
Our appointment of the first woman chief justice will come and we will welcome it. Women have always been competent and qualifying for any position and space.
The most alarming part of our pro-women movement in our country is this: we are not only fighting the injustices of the past where women were excluded and overlooked. We are busy creating a future injustice where currently boys are overlooked, ignored and neglected. Yet the girl children are considered for almost every Stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) opportunity and every other opportunity that seeks to advance girls in correcting the injustices that women suffered in the past, which is a topic for another day.
For as long as an incompetent man is not chosen over a competent woman, then we are on the right track. As South Africans, I believe we all agree that Zondo is a competent black man for this job. In a nutshell, if we are going to complain about a black-qualified and competent black man being appointed over a black-qualified and competent woman, then we should change our approach. If we want every new leadership appointment in strategic and senior positions in our country to be black women, then let’s tell men to refrain from applying. Simple!
As far as I am concerned, gender equality is not the exclusion of men.
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