Women are great, by Caitlyn G.

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Caitlyn GriffithEducation 2 -- Kayonza District, Eastern Province




Women are great.
I mean come on, its just true.
When I look into the shockingly beautiful faces of the womenhere I just know in my core that it’s true. When I see a thin woman carrying a50 L Jerrycan of water on her head with a baby on her back and a sack ofpotatoes at her side I know that strength comes from a different place thanmuscles. When I listen to my friend talk about how, after being impregnated byher teacher in her first year of high school, she never wants to marry butrather to continue raise her child herself and get a job in business, all thewhile smiling and laughing, I know that joy can come from a place other thanyour circumstances. Women are the embodiment of paradoxes, of strength and joyand sadness and passion and exhaustion all mingling together in an encasementof beauty.
Rwandan women are amazing. In the village, they literally doeverything. They cook, clean, farm, bear, birth and raise children, they runinformal businesses, and see their children through school. They are amazing.
Rwanda, like many developing countries (and developed onestoo) has a long history of unequal gender roles. Girls education, women’sinvolvement in politics, in formal business and as leaders with a voice are allstill fairly new ideas. These ideas take time to reach out to the village whereold habits, customs and cultures die hard and men are reluctant to relinquishtheir power.
This can be hard to watch at times. Especially becauseoftentimes Rwandans don’t see it. The government talks about gender equality alot and so many people just assume that now they have it. They see girls inschool (though fewer than boys with lower scores on average) and women on TV orthe radio and assume there is equality. But even though there is great progressbeing made there are still some frustratingly entrenched ideas persisting here.For example a girl is not a woman until she is married while there is a specialword for young man and also a boy can become a man by virtue of age while agirl’s womanhood is directly connected to her husband. People here call myfiancé Joe my boss, which is completely normal. Many of my friends call theirhusbands “Boss.” Also, women are often called upon to be the servants at people’sparties so that the men never have to get up but can have a woman continuallyrefill their beer. And in the home women are distinctly below their husbands’rule.
Needless to say, things need to change. And things arechanging, just very very slowly. The tricky thing about change is that youcan’t just run out in front of a man sitting and drinking beer while his wifecleans, cooks, cares for kids and refills his cup and wave your arms to say “STOPSTOP! ARE YOU CRAZY!? Things have to CHANGE!” No. You have to be patient, askpointed questions, plant seeds, draw people’s attention to the inconsistenciesand injustices, and ENCOURAGE people to greatness. You can’t tell people theyare wrong with aggression. You have to help them see that and come to their ownconclusions. You have to encourage them to be better, to think larger, to actconsciously.  If you make people angryand defensive the change will not be positive.
I love to do this exercise with my students. I ask them todraw a table with two parts: one for gender equality and one for inequality.Then I ask them to consider some places in their communities that they canidentify equality and where they can identify inequality. Often, even with allthe rhetoric regarding gender balance that you hear here, no one has everthought about their communities critically. That is a perfect place to start.And not just in Rwanda. Change will not happen naturally. All of us need to beconstantly looking at our lives and our communities identifying areas of injustice.I never, however, leave the exercise at that. I ask the students to make a listof practical things THEY CAN DO to address the inequalities on their table.Then we make and action plan. Because change can’t happen without actions-thousandsmall actions slowly chipping away at a structure of oppression until equality,freedom and unity is birthed forth in its place. This may sound overlyoptimistic but I live it out every day. And so to dozens of women and men in mycommunity. 
So optimistic yes, but overly….never.
In the name of change,
In the name of women everywhere,
cg