LET US SALUTE GHANAIAN WOMEN & THEIR SISTERS ELSEWHERE GLOBALLY ON INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY!

In a nation full of misogynists, it is not surprising that women aren't taken as seriously as men, in many spheres of our national life. For example, the idea that a younger male offspring inherits family property, in a family in which the eldest sibling happens to be a female, is an outrage - and must no longer be countenanced in a 21st century African society such as ours.

Women play a key role in families across our homeland Ghana. And as we all know, there is no question that were it not for the strength of character of so many women in Ghana, many families would become dysfunctional.

Indeed, in many Ghanaian families, it is the woman of the house whose financial contribution to the family budget, ensures that the children get an education, and that there is food on the table daily.

The time has come for our nation to recognise the important role women play in holding Ghanaian families together countrywide, and, as their contribution to our national economy, ensuring that markets nationwide operate efficiently.

To do so, Ghana must blaze a trial in Africa, by changing its constitution to make our Parliament one in which half the seats are reserved for women. Ditto membership of the president's Cabinet. It will make a huge difference to our nation when that happens. Indeed, we will be foolish to maintain the present status quo.

Let us also pass laws that will make violence against women, including rape, a "non-bailable" offence punishable by a mandatory prison sentence. It is intolerable that so many important men in Ghana get away with rape, for example.

Ghana ought to become an African nation in which women play an important part in the work needed to make our country an African equivalent of the egalitarian societies of Scandinavia.

To do so, the gender-discrimination that prevents so many women from reaching the top in the various fields of human endeavour that they participate in, must be fought against by all Ghanaians.

Finally, it is one's hope that Ghana will join nations like Vietnam, China and Russia in declaring International Women's Day a public holiday - to honour the women of Ghana and to acknowledge their contribution to nation-building, over the years since we gained our independence, on the 6th of March, 1957.

And on the day designated annually as International Women's Day, 8th March, this blog (which is firmly in the camp of women, in the war of the sexes) salutes all Ghana's hard-working women - and their sisters in the other continents on the planet Earth.

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