Women in the Workplace - Stuck Between a Rock and a Hard Place (written March 19)

First off, let me make it crystal clear that I 100% support women's rights, gender equality, women's empowerment, and whatever other term you might want to use for the movement to give women the same opportunities as men. After three years working at CARE and over a year as an active member of Peace Corps/The Gambia's Gender and Development committee, I could not be any other way. In fact, I would go so far as to say I even have a feminist streak from time to time. All that being said, after a year and a half in this country and countless debates about the merits of “50/50,” as they call it here, I am finally starting to appreciate the complexity and, yes, the potential negative impacts of bringing women into the formal workforce here. Here are a few of the major factors to consider:

1) While girls school enrollment has increased dramatically in recent years, girls still are not performing nearly as well in school as boys. There are a lot of factors that go into explaining why this is, and it is something the government is working on, but that still is the current reality. The result of that reality is that when (if) they finish school, the young women are not as qualified as the men for jobs. If a woman is not as qualified as a man for a job and you hire her anyway, simply because she is a woman, in the short term, is that really helping the country develop?

2) There is a lot of social pressure for women to have a lot of babies here. We have discussed why in earlier posts. Employers (rightfully) give women generous maternity leave after having a baby, which means that when they employ women, they are constantly running off on maternity leave. Male employees would not have that problem. Again, in the short term, is hiring women knowing this will happen really helping the country?

3) Working women are still expected to perform all the typical woman's household duties (cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping, childcare, etc), many of which are very time-intensive because they don't have things like microwaves and dishwashers and washing machines and dry cleaners and cars to help them, which detracts from their ability to fully commit themselves to their jobs. Again, when employers hire women, they are be constantly running off to take care of these household duties, while male employees would not have that problem. Yet again, in the short term, is hiring these women anyways really helping the country?

4) Government jobs make up the vast majority of salaried positions in rural areas (the only other salaried jobs are usually jobs with NGOs or banks), and most, if not all, government jobs in rural areas are extension workers or other rotating positions. This includes teachers, health workers, agriculture and forestry workers, development assistants, security staff (police and military), as well as some others I'm probably forgetting. Rotating positions here change postings throughout the country every year or two, which results in most of the staff living away from their spouses and families. In this culture, women run the households, so a female extension worker has to choose between leaving a sister or female cousin to run her household and raise her children while she is posted on the other end of the country or moving her family around year or two. This certainly is not a choice I would wish on any woman.

So...given all those factors above, the question is, given the current cultural context, is it appropriate and beneficial to bring women into the formal workforce here, and especially into these types of rotating positions? If the answer is no, not unless the cultural expectations change, then how and what is going to cause those expectations to change? Is putting the women in there anyways, despite the fact that it is not beneficial in a lot of ways, the only way to convince people that having the women in the workforce is worth it? The Gambia is very much in transition on this issue, similar to the transition the US went through in the 50s, 60s and 70s. I'm curious to learn how we were able to successfully navigate that transition in the US. Any thoughts or reading suggestions?