DRCongo: Feminism & Gender Inequality - Ctrl.Alt.Shift

It's hard not to get heated up when I witness gender discrimination, it's even harder not to speak out when you hear it's the norm in the culture. That wasn't the intentional message of a Congolese college I visited, but that's certainly what I took from it. Unfortunately, a meeting with the students that was arranged to illustrate progression for women in the DRC, instead demonstrated how much of an uphill struggle some Congolese women still face - leaving the females in my reporting group feeling disheartened, silently feeling lucky they had not been brought up with such unjust oppression. Mr Brightside will tell you it's still great that at least the women are being supplied with education and access to schooling; in a country where good education facilities are scarce in general.



It's true, and I would never devalue how far the country has come - but it seizes to stop me cringing some of the behaviour I heard in that room. Here's my Ctrl.Alt.Shift report:

Postcards From The Edge: DRCongo
Tuesday November 04, 2008

The cause and affect of a project do not always meet in the middle. Today, that was the case as we visited the gender equality programme of CONAFED.

The dream was there. The plan was golden. Co-ordinator Roger Mukmba promised more action in the transformation of his people: "We are working towards more female leadership and less women used as inferior tools in the workplace." He stated how far the country has come, claiming Parliament decided after the war that a minimum of 30% of people in each workplace would be female, and that a type of P.S.H.E would be integrated into schools to raise awareness of gender power and equality - Roger called it a "noble wave of studies" spanning from nurseries, to universities to the workplace. He even addressed the "not so uncommon" issue of girls in school being marked down for denying sex with their professors, and how CONAFED was offering counselling and ways of campaigning against this disgraceful form of discrimination - such as having the victims wear T-shirts stating "I cannot move up to the next level of education because a professor is exploiting my rights..." (How you fit that on a T-shirt? Beats me). I was immediately cynical of how effective and slow this technique could be, but I thought I'd let Roger prove to me what leaps and bounds CONAFED were making.



Despairingly, the dream fell on its fat and naïve face as we met Congolese students at the University of IFACIC (so-called examples of CONAFED's progress). Even though we were told at the beginning that there are now 75% female students at the institution, and that CONAFED and IFACIC were encouraging women to learn and take active responsibility in society - the room wreaked of male bravado and female disempowerment. The girls seemed to huddle together, having their answers stamped on or just shushed away by the authority of their fellow male colleagues. My question of "How do women get out of a 'sex for grades' situation?" was never directly answered - tangent after tangent got me heated and impatient. My own female colleagues were stunned to an uncomfortable silence as the Congolese men regurgitated: "Women are like grass to the sheep here" and "If a woman gets raped for wearing a mini-skirt that is her own fault for wearing such clothes" - both in ignorant tones that implied 'That's just the way it is.' At the back, our Congolese translator Chris walked out, he himself appalled by the words of his countrymen.

I pressed further, desperate for a silver lining. I almost had to force one of their female students to tell me (without interruptions from the men) what the deal with sexual harassment in IFACIC was. 25 year old Santa Tembo's answer was astonishing: "six out of 10 girls are harassed here, but they cannot speak out as it will bring shame on the girl and cause her grief in society."

Read the full article here