The World Economic Forum Thinks Rwandan Women Are the Happiest In Africa

Will The Gender Equality Gap Ever Be Closed?

Why don’t we raise an alarm when Tom earns more than John but do raise a thunderous one when Tom earns more than Sarah?

Why don’t we raise an alarm when Tom has access to good education yet John doesn’t but do raise a thunderous one when Tom has access to good education and Sarah doesn’t?

There are so many inequalities in the capitalist global economy we’ve created ourselves but we have successfully reduced them to mere battle between man and woman.

A ubiquitous brew of Wealth inequality, Wage inequality, Inter and Intra-Tribal inequality, Education inequality, Racial inequality and the budding Technology inequality permeate the day to day co-existence of humans on the planet.

Despite this unprecedented diversity (unprecedented because no century has been marred with such levels and avenues of inequality like the 21st) of inequality, the global focus has been centered on “mitigating” the inequality between a man and a woman.

Intense activism against any form of inequality has been successfully diverted to ultimately make a man and woman equal. Some of this activism has mistaken gender equality for gender sameness!

Whether man and woman ought to be equal is a socio-political question. Whether they are the same, is a purely bio-scientific one.

So, in order to mitigate global inequality, we ought to address inequality as a whole, not as a mere gap between a man and a woman.

We ought to address it as a gap between man & man, woman & woman and man & woman, otherwise the gender equality gap might never be closed.

Forums like the World Economic Forum (WEF) have not been exempted from this bias of taking inequality for gender inequality.

In the WEF Global Gender Gap report-2018, African countries, Rwanda and Namibia ranked 6th and 10th respectively as the countries in the world, where it is increasingly becoming comfortable to be a woman.

The ranking was based on four sub-indexes: Economic Participation, Educational Attainment, Health & Survival and Political Empowerment.

I guess, to the WEF, the case where Diane Rwigara was prosecuted following her candidature in the recent Rwandan presidential elections is not enough to disturb the happiness of women in Rwanda.

I’m not sure these figures reflect the reality on ground but that’s a discussion for another day. If you are sure, please inform us.

Today, I would like to emphasize the need to redirect our efforts so as to mitigate inequality as a whole! We are giving too much attention to biased activism.