Women In Ghana Deserve Better From Ghanaian Society Than Is Presently The Case

In a scene repeated daily in thousands  of family homes across Ghana, women come home in the evening -  from working in their farms,  market-stalls, shops,   sundry  businesses,  offices in public and private entities   -  and change from their work-clothes into more casual clothing,  to  prepare and serve the family's evening  meal.


Be they lawyers, doctors, accountants, engineers, research scientists,  dressmakers,  market women or farmers, those amongst them who have them,   often wake up at dawn to ensure that their  children are readied for school,  and that each member of  the family can have breakfast and a packed-lunch for the day.


Alas, it is a thankless family task that is invariably taken for granted by their husbands and children.


And in a nation full of philandering males, many children owe the stable home environment they grow up in, to the forbearance of their more responsible and enterprising mothers.


Indeed,  there are many successful women and men in Ghana  who owe their high status in society,  mainly to the sacrifices made by their mothers   to ensure their education.


And  those who travel on our nation's highways late at night, for example, will attest to the fact that pick-up trucks carrying farm produce,  with  the women owners of the  said agricultural produce squeezed into the tiniest of sitting spaces  in the pick-up trucks' buckets,   or atop the produce, are indeed a familiar sight on roads nationwide.


And those brave and hard-working women are at it rain or shine. As a matter of  fact,  the purchase and   distribution of food in our country,  is largely  in the hands of women entrepreneurs - who also dominate large areas of the informal sector of Ghana's  real  economy.


Has the time not come, dear reader,  for our nation to end the marginalisation of women in Ghanaian society - and finally acknowledge their immense contribution to the development of the enterprise Ghana,  over the years since independence?


As we speak, valuable taxpayers' money is being poured into that  financial equivalent of a blackhole, otherwise  known as the "Brand Ghana Office" at the Osu Castle.


Why should we tolerate  the lunacy of  the national treasury paying the earth  for daft ideas from the mediocre individuals  ensconced there - ideas that  by definition  are at best ephemeral outcomes that can easily be made complete nonsense of,  by uncontrollable events,  in an instant - when fairness to Ghanaian women can win the enterprise Ghana plaudits worldwide,  at zero cost to hapless taxpayers, I ask?


The question that  patriotic,   independent-minded  and discerning voters must pose to our political parties and hard-of-hearing politicians,  is:  Would Ghanaians   not be far better off  putting  their  nation on the world map, much more effectively,   by getting all our political parties to agree that the constitution ought to be amended:  to reserve half the seats in Parliament for  women;  ensure that half of the total number of government ministers at any given point in time is allotted to women;   and  reserve half the seats on the boards of all public entities to women?


Will that not  immediately gain the world's attention and admiration - and  forever be pointed out as an example worthy of emulation,  by students attending civics classes  in high schools  and political science lectures  in  universities   worldwide?


(Incidentally, will  such a  simple idea  that costs absolutely no money,   ever emanate from the so-called "Brand Ghana Office" - especially one that will have such long-lasting and positive effect,  on Ghana's image globally,   I ask? But I digress.)


Our homeland Ghana will be a much better place  if Ghanaian womenfolk played an equal leadership role in society.


Would there not probably be less high-level corruption in the public sector,  for example, dear reader  - Ghanaian women  being generally more honest than their menfolk?


So let us finally  affirm  the important role women play in Ghanaian society, by making the constitutional changes suggested above.


It is time the contribution of Ghanaian women to nation-building was acknowledged by us all. They most certainly deserve better from Ghanaian society than is presently the case. A word to the wise...


Tel: 027 745 3109.


Email: peakofi.thompson@gmail.com