Female lawmakers in Zimbabwe criticised a male colleague after he referred to them as “bench warmers”, news site Chronicle reports.
BBC
Temba Mliswa made the comment while contributing to a debate about the welfare of war veterans, saying the 60 special seats held by female MPs had “made us lose money” and that “most of them do nothing”.
“The only thing that we have seen coming from them is having nice make up and nice wigs,” he added.
He said if women had special representation seats then people with disabilities should also have the same.
His colleagues called his comments “unparliamentary” and said they denigrated women.
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Female MP Jessie Majome said, “he [ Mliswa] must not take cheap shots at women to get popular mileage. We are women MPs of this house that represent our constituencies and the men in this house are also required to represent women”.
“He must respect women because he was born by a woman. At night you look for us women, yet at Parliament you insult us. We gave birth to you,” MP Thabitha Khumalo said.
The Chronicle reported Mr Mliswa left parliament with women MPs hurling insults at him.