Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Ghana: Plight of Women

From Ghana Web:
IN Ghana today, most women are discriminated against in jobs, pay, education and welfare. Most women are financially dependent on a man, and without assistance, carry the burden of looking after children and caring for the sick and old. Society's perception formers’- ranging from judges to journalists, cabinet ministers to advertising copywriters, take it for granted that women are inferior. In hindsight, they reduce all women, whatever their occupation, experience, Politics or interests to one dimension, sex, and judge them by whether they measure up to what men desire.

In our society, women don't have equality, they don't have freedom, and they don't even have respect in any meaningful sense. What can be done about it? Women have to be able to fight back, for themselves and for the future of all women. This doesn't mean an out-and-out conflict with all men all of the time. Separatism--the view that women can fight for liberation only on their own and against men--is a counsel of despair and a way of dividing women and men still further. Women have a right to organise with men to fight against the society that keeps us all down, to make men see that the world has to be changed. This doesn't mean that women can't organise their own meetings, demonstrations, pickets or whatever, when appropriate-- we have that right, too--but we should be trying to reunite women and men in the struggle for socialism.

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