Western assertiveness does not work for African women - Dr. Joyce Banda

The former president of Malawi and the founder for Elect Her in Africa, (EHIA)Dr Joyce Bandah says Western assertiveness does not work for African women and there is must be an urgent need for African women to stand up and demand what is right.

Dr. Banda, who was addressing a cross section of most influential women form across the continent at the on-going International SHEROES Forun in Dubai, says that African women should not follow the Western route of assertiveness and confrontation as a way to gain a voice in politics in Africa.

“If you want to take the Western route, all you will get is rejection, frustration, and vexation. However confrontation will never work."

The former president described a women’s leadership training session in New York where she was given tips on being assertive, like standing up straight and looking people in the eye and standing up to them.

“If I had done that, for example while talking to a traditional ruler in Africa, I would have been rejected immediately,” Banda said.

The founder of EHIA, an initiative to encourage African women to run for office, has spent the last two decades lobbying for more female representation in African governments.

Dr.Banda argued that money, rather than lectures and training seminars would better serve the cause of female empowerment in political systems on the continent.

“When you don’t have the money, you can’t stand for elections in Africa.”

Compared to their counterparts elsewhere in the world, African women aren’t doing so poorly in political representation.

Globally, women accounted for only 17.7% of the world’s government ministers in 2015. In Africa, that figure was 20%, according to Inter-Parliamentary Union, a nonprofit based in New York.

According to another measure by the United Nations, a little over a fifth of parliamentary seats in Africa are held by women.

That’s more than the 19% of congressional seats held by women in the United States and about the same as the percentage of parliamentary seats held by women in the United Kingdom. And of the 20 countries with the highest percentage of parliamentary seats held by women, six are African.