GENDER EQUALITY IN THE HOME

In the wider world,gender equality is often narrowed down to the equal placement of a male and a female.

Wikipedia puts it this way''Gender equality, also known as sexual equality, is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender, including economic participation and decision-making; and the state of valuing different behaviors, aspirations and needs equally, regardless of gender".This point of view has been widely spread and its becoming a trend in our world today.

In our society today, there is so much clamour for gender equality and the old norm of men solely taking over or leading in every area/sphere of human endeavor is gradually fizzling out.

Nowadays, women take lead roles in different sphere and are doing exceptionally well in that regard.

This is a laudable achievement for women whose impact overtime has been able to prove beyond every reasonable doubt the saying that"what a man can do,a woman can do better".

I call this an achievement because before now,women were relegated to the background and they were made to take back stage of developing the family and country at large. Resident in most women are great potentials which they could bring to table of development and contribute their quota in.

My take on gender equality is simply for every woman to remain submissive and never clamour/yearn to be equal with the male counterpart.

God created man and made him head over the woman. Nevertheless, its alright for every woman to dig for more, be relevant in the society and raise the game. Get education and be relevant.

From the above topic, I want to view gender equality from a very different perspective in regard to the home or family.

Gender equality in the home is the ability of parent/ward to train children whether male or female to be able to fit into any aspect of the home.

By this I mean,training up a child irrespective of the gender to undertake any and every duty in the home.

In the typical African setting,its almost inappropriate for a male child to be found in the kitchen either cooking, washing or doing any other chore assigned to a girl child.

Duties like farm work, splitting of firewood and anything that requires strength is often allocated to the male child. The female child might not have enough strength to undertake all these but she can assist in  anyway. In my opinion, a girl child shouldn't be allowed to do anything that requires so much physical strength, just for the recognition of their strength level.

Gender inequality is resident in almost every home except for few homes whose parents are keen on the total/all round upbringing of children irrespective of gender.

I can recall that as a young girl,my Dad taught me how to wash his car,cloths,weed around the house and to undertake any chore or duty that we(my sibs and I)could do at the age.

I am married now and I absolutely don't find any chore difficult to do in my home.

So,I am of the opinion that every child irrespective of gender must of necessity be taught/instructed to undertake any chore in the home. Nothing should be limited to a girl child. Both should be taught how to cook, clean the house, do the laundry, wash dishes, clean the car, take care of younger sibling, go to the market or shop for the family, and any other duty. This is because in the end, they both will end up in their own homes and only those well trained will enjoy it and find it really easy to assist the other in marriage.

They could find themselves in other homes but how valuable or relevant in such homes they will be is solely dependent on how well trained they are from home because Charity they say begins from home.