IS THIS MAN NOT MAN ENOUGH?

Zanele Guqaza interviewed a man who works in a women’s organisation to get his opinion on how it feels.

Experiencing the warmth that envelopes you as the women you work with welcome you into their community, their acceptance of your willingness to assist in their empowerment, that is the highlight of my career.”

A statement by Matongo Mundia, who was in the peculiar position of representing a women’s organisation which he works for – “Women for Change”.

Mundia is the last born in a family of seven

– five boys and two girls. By the time he reached the age when he was deemed fit to do house chores, most of his brothers had already moved out of the house. This left him to tackle domestic chores from an early age and there was no room to be pampered. He reflects on being engaged in various types of labour at home; “My parents would ask me to do the dishes and at times to do the garden.”

It was his family that initiated his undiscriminating way of viewing gender issues. “Chores were never allocated according to gender, therefore gender sensitivity is something I have always been aware of,” he said.

It was this awareness that led Mundia to utilise his first job as a natural resource manager to expose gender inequalities, and pioneered systems that helped instil change in the discriminatory policies of the organisation.

His experiences at the Winter School have not changed much of his views on gender relations. He is, however, still amused by the women who are left perplexed when he announces himself as his current organisation’s representative in sessions like this year ’s Winter School. He is used to receiving similar reactions even from Zambian women, who are used to men shunning their attempts to empower themselves.

Women for Change focuses on four sectors: economic development and empowerment for women; food security (sustainable agriculture); civic awareness (linking of customs/norms/ taboos and human rights); and research and documentation of policies (natural resources, environment, agriculture)

Zanele is an activist with the Sounds of Edutainment.