Itumeleng Ward councillor, who is also a popular media personality, Motamma Horatius, says women should not just fight for space in the male-dominated world, but actually seek to lead it, while groom other women to follow suit.
Horatius was speaking on Wednesday evening as local women entrepreneurs from various sectors, gathered to commemorate International Women’s Day in Gaborone. The event was held under the ambit of Mrs Botswana Pageant, a local annual beauty and brains competition for married women.
As part of this year’s pageant, the competition held an event entitled DigitALL: Innovation & Technology, as part of empowering women.
When addressing women at the MRS Botswana Wise Women Wednesday event themed DigitALL: Innovation & Technology hosted in commemoration of International Women’s Day at Travel Lodge,
“I am glad Mrs Botswana found a home in a ward where not only is the councillor a woman, but the ward development committee comprises only women. School heads are women and many stakeholders of this ward are women and so I intentionally did not just speak but ensured we walked the walk,” Motamma. She continued: “I task you to carry on the battle every day and challenge the status quo.
“Go into terrains less travelled by women, how many women are leading? How many women are in the wealth index? How many women are leading in real estate, construction, boards, mining, sports, agriculture and creative industries?
“We still have a mammoth task, though nowadays all the talk is about empowering the girl child.”
According to Motamma, statistics on the ground show that in the country, women are still few in positions of influence but lead the numbers when it comes to poverty. On social media, some are even being called “bo ke kopa favour”.
The chain of disempowerment and poverty has to be broken and part of this involves taking advantage of the available government programmes. Motamma said the new Ministry of Entrepreneurship presents an opportunity for women entrepreneurs to act on their ambitions, particularly in terms replacing items in the country’s import bill.
“I challenge you to go into male dominated fields.
“I am here as a living example. I am not only a youth, but also one of just eight women in Council out of 36 councillors.
“That did not stop me from not only being a former chairperson of finance and former chairperson of performance monitoring, but also being named the Best in Political Leadership.
“Be encouraged to go into territories you seldom go into.
“After all, women are intelligent and can multi-task.”
Prominent communications guru, Tebogo Lebotse Sebego, who is also known as the woman of many hats, encouraged women to know who they are and advised them to go outside of their comfort zone. She also called women to refrain from victimising each other, noting that older women at work tended to be unkind to younger ones or abused them and hated them simply because the youngsters were often “bubbly, energetic, beautiful, strong and fierce”.
“Gender bias is common in the work place where young girls are not given an equal chance to grow unlike their male counterparts who have the same age and experience.
“This demoralises them because you will find that most of them are very intelligent but denied a chance to spread their wings.
“Gender bias just like patriarchy does not know their space,” she said.
Dumiso Gasha from Success Capital called for an increase in the production of data which will ensure equity-informed decisions and policy making.
“It is a key component to improving and ensuring integrated primary and universal health coverage.
“In addition, the arts, sport and activism in various forms have untapped potential in unearthing and addressing inequities through messaging, educating and awareness rising.
“There should be collaborative investments in these to strengthen human development for everyone,” he said.
This year’s Women’s Day celebrations come as research by Grant Thornton Women shows that internationally, the overall number of women in senior leadership continues to grow, although the numbers are generally stagnant, or slow at best. In Grant Thornton’s latest study, the number of women in senior leadership roles in the corporate world increased by only half a percentage point to 32.4% globally in the past year. Africa’s growth was also stagnant but slightly higher at 39.8%.
