Womenomics

I have been wondering who or what will bring Mugabe down. An article towards the end of last year made me wonder if it would be women.

The rare demonstration of resistance was fuelled by some 200 women hoisting placards and demanding an end to the cholera epidemic. The women only marched a couple of hundred yards before dispersing, foiling the security services who only found flyers blowing along the Harare footpath.

The contrast between the concerns of the Zimbabwean women and in the Western world is phenomenal. In Australia, concern is growing at the systemic problems which inhibit the appointment of women to senior management roles despite women graduating in greater numbers. The lack of promotion is tied to the time women take out of the workforce colliding with the lack of flexibility demonstrated by businesses. Here in New Zealand the Human Rights Commission says that the evidence of gender equality is now indisputable (for more on both of these issues read Girls Just Want to Have Fund$).

If women continue to defy Mugabe, will they take power, economic power, in a way that we have not been able to?