EVERY year from November 25 to December 10, there is an international campaign focused on raising awareness and preventing violence against girls and women.
It is the object of this opinion article to engage in long-term thinking regarding this seasonal expenditure and labour that involves protests and marches, community outreach and engagement, policy discussions, and advocacy and support for the survivors of gender-based violence (GBV).
The argument anon will endeavour to look at the issue of the promotion and protection of gender justice with the mind with a window, not a mind with a mirror, because gender justice is not spontaneous like making a cup of coffee, neither is it an event that can be packaged within 16 days of activism against GBV, but a process that ought to be folded into the cognitive structures of children right from early education development to tertiary education.
Issues of gender equality are structural. They have their deep roots in culture, religion, politics, tradition and institutions (family, school, media, workplace).
Essentially, issues that affect gender relations are learnt from socialisation and education. Socialisation represents the informal or unstructured environment where children pick up from their environment normative practices regarding social intercourse between boys and girls, men and women.
According to the social cognitive theory, children model their behaviours on what they see and hear. What children see and hear shapes their personalities; if it's garbage in, then it's garbage out for them. On the other hand, education involves intentional and structured efforts to instil values, norms and practices that are cherished by society. The norms, values and practices taught in schools mirror societal aspirations, expectations, ideas and ideals, and are conveyed through the curriculum.
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What women and girls experience at the hands of men and boys is largely a leading indicator of a deeply patriarchal society that is peppered with men and boys who view women as sources of plunder, pleasure and political power, nothing more and nothing less.
What men and boys have learnt over the years, either through socialisation or education, eventually fashions how they think, feel and act towards women and girls, and what has been learnt over the years cannot be changed by the 16 Days of activism against gender-based violence.
The chances of men and boys changing their perceptions of women and girls during the 16 days of activism against GBV are as slim as the chances of an ice cube surviving when dropped in a blast furnace. Arguably, violence, discrimination, exclusion and gender inequality are learned behaviours.
These hegemonic behaviours of men and boys against girls and women need to be unlearned and replaced through sustained and deliberate educational systems.
Observably, countries cannot campaign their way out of deeply entrenched, toxic and corrosive patriarchal normative practices through seasonal statutory rituals of 16 days against GBV; doing so will be akin to lighting candles to cure cancer. It is indeed a colossal, if not a gargantuan, task to change the perspective of male adults. On the other hand, it is an easy task to influence the worldviews of boys and girls during their formative years because their personalities are still in a state of development, if not impressionable.
Children develop their moral, spiritual, mental, psychomotor, and social domains during their formative years and it is advisable to catch them young during these developmental milestones through a curriculum that deliberately promotes gender justice, norms of civility, peace building, human dignity and citizenship.
When children learn right from ECD that boys and girls are equal human beings who deserve respect, human dignity, self-determination, love, kindness, equality and fairness, they will grow up to cherish one another, prize norms of civility in their relations and engage with a sense of positive reciprocity. Education systems, through their curricula, constitute the pith and marrow of shaping gender norms, not just academic knowledge.
It is important for the world to indicate to children that the left hand should not always work in tension with the right hand. For example, the 16 days of activism against GBV put a premium on a world that is devoid of violence against women and girls, but violence is not only physical — it is also emotional, economic and psychological. In the economic sphere, women are under-represented in the formal economy and over-represented in the informal economy,, which is associated with reproduction, production and community service. In terms of leadership positions, right from the UN system to other strands of governance (executive, parliamentary, judiciary, commissions), very few women have high-profile placements and in private spaces like households, women eat last after they have seen to it that their husbands and children have eaten first. In the security sector, women have experienced sexual violence and have not largely participated in peace-building initiatives as given by the UN Security Council Resolution Number 1325/2000.
It is against these observations that the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence cannot be seen as the be-all and end-all in fighting off gender violence against women, but as a reminder of gender justice. Furthermore, it can be used as a measuring scoop to assess the extent to which governments have come up with national action plans to fulfil the success goals of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs —Goal Number 5: Gender Equality), the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995) on gender mainstreaming, the Convention on the Elimination of All Discrimination Against Women (1999) and UN Security Council Resolutions of 1325/2000, 1888/2009, 1889/2009 and the principles of natural justice as enshrined in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights 1948.
In summation, one does not need to go to Beijing to appreciate that gender justice is bigger than a 16-day campaign and that it must be taught from ECD upwards, just like literacy, numeracy and citizenship. Nation States, given their power and responsibility, are challenged to fold gender justice into national consciousness by mainstreaming gender studies across disciplines such as economics, law, sociology, development studies, medicine, engineering and the Arts.