Zimbabwe not ready for female leadership

Shavon Pulley/gender issues/April 18

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42035

Women make up about half of the Zimbabwe society and are far from accounting for 50% on the ballots. During the last legislative elections, women ran for the lower house of parliament out of a total of 273 aspirants (about 20.9 percent of candidates). Female candidates accounted for 34 percent of those who contested Senate polls: 45 women were involved in this race, and 87 men.From the figures, it shows that there is a huge disparity between female and male candidates which needs a lot of attention. Executive director of the Women's Trust, a non-governmental organization in Harare. The trust is heading up 'Women can do it!', a campaign for increasing women's participation in the political life of Zimbabwe. "The question to ask is what is it that should be done to increase the number of female candidates? Voting women into parliament means that women's issues will become national issues." Many believe that even if all female candidates running in the National Assembly and Senate polls win, the country will still find itself falling short of regional goals concerning women's representation in government. It is still amazing that even though women make up half of this population, they are still in denial of a woman being in leadership. Female candidates are running to show their interest being a leader. But, because she is a women, she can't get the recognition that they need. I hope this organization can get the message across, to bring awareness to this situation and many more.