SDG 5 Gender Equity - DON'T LOSE FOCUS

We have come a long way in our struggle to give voice to the girl child. We now celebrate the many once unimaginable achievements of women of all colours. Communities in various parts of the world are now revealing and celebrating the roles of women in their development with no fear of backlash.

While this is indeed worthy of celebrating as girls become women worthy of being celebrated, I wonder if we are not celebrating too early aswe might merely be celebrating the movement from one extreme to another.

The inequitable focus on the girl child has pushed the boy child into oblivion with more boys buying into the drag queen movement, three transgender woman fort every one transgender msm, and less boys transitioning to responsible men, I think we need to be sure we are not creating a refreshing extreme with the genders.

I sometimes wonder if this could be because with all the attention on reducing inequality among them genders, no one has addressed the roles of the boy child in the new and more equitable dispensation.

Could it be that we have been so successful that we have displaced the male gender whose role used to be primarily taking charge. Without the need to be in charge, it seems we have left so many males confused as to where they can come in.

I would like to use this opportunity to point out that our roles as mothers and nurturers places the responsibility of making space for the male child on our shoulders. It is important that we begin to intentionally groom matching males for our excellent girls to avoid another potential crises of skewed gender balance.

As we celebrate our girls, let us ensure that our boys are not left behind nor made to feel irrelevant.