International Women’s Day: Not so woman-ish?

Mildred Aliviza Agoya has had customers overlook her expertise and knowledge about phones, opining that, as a woman, there is no way she knows much about phones and technology.

“It is not uncommon during a phone campaign for me to be explaining the features of a phone to a customer, especially a guy, only for them to request for a male to do the enlightening,” says Mildred, Realme’s PR and Marketing Manager, adding that people always believe men are the techy ones. “They do not expect a woman to be knowledgeable about a phone or the technology used to build it. They are surprised when I know something as simple as the Operating System or User Interface the phone uses.”

At her workplace, where it could be argued her male counterpart should know better, the situation is no different. “My male colleagues have rudely cut me short during presentations to chip in or seemed visibly uninterested when I speak during a meeting. Sometimes, I think they do it subconsciously,” she says.

Mildred forms part of about three-quarters of women around the world who experience bias at work. This is according to research by Lean In, an international community based on the book by the same name dedicated to helping women realise their ambitions.

In the book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, author and Chief Operating Officer of Facebook Sandberg shares her personal stories, uses research to shine a light on gender differences, and offers practical advice to help women achieve their goals.

“I give them time to showcase whatever it is they are showcasing. They will, and they always do, forget to mention something or they will have their facts wrong. That is where I jump in and correct them or provide the missing information,” says Mildred of the strategy she has had to employ to break the bias.

Engineering

When Nereah Awino told her father that she wanted to be an Aeronautical Engineer his words to her were, ‘hii course ya wanaume, unataka kufanya kwanini?’ (Why do you want to pursue a male course?) I do not want embarrassments”. This is despite her father’s awareness of her dream to fix planes from when she was 10 years old.

“We had no engineers in my family then. Not even extended. I think people preferred to be IT specialists, doctors, lawyers, politicians and teachers. It was not easy to convince my father this is the career path I would like to venture into. It took the intervention of my mother to convince him and a lot for me to prove myself,” she says about her father who is now her number one cheerleader.

Nereah holds a degree in Aeronautical Engineering and a Masters in Aerospace from the United Kingdom, and works as a System and Reliability Engineer at Jambojet. She has worked for design companies, creating prototypes and simulators as a design engineer and on flight control systems.

Although women are now able to achieve careers in traditionally male occupations, such as engineering, they are all too often harassed, assaulted and denied promotions. It is for this reason that International Women’s Day 2022, held on Tuesday, March 8, is shining a light on Gender Equity with its #BreakTheBias campaign.

Aviation

For Elizabeth Timona, it is the bias at the workplace she has had to deal with. “I have had to grow a thick skin to deal with the negative bias towards women that comes with the industry.

However, at Jambojet, we are lucky to have a good number of female pilots that is higher than the industry average. Over 20 per cent of the pilots at Jambojet are female,” she says.

The inspiration to become a pilot stemmed from her father. “Dad was in the Air Force. He would be dressed in military attire for work and that caught my attention. I thought he was very cool and wanted to be just like him.” Her curiosity would be greatly satisfied when during the Nairobi air show her father would take her to the aircrafts and explain all the instruments in the flight deck. “For a young girl, this was extremely fascinating. This really pushed my decision to be a pilot.”

Media

Mildred is not only overlooked in the marketplace and the workplace, but also in media representation, with the news painting a picture of a world in which women are virtually invisible.

According to the 2020 Global media monitoring project (GMMP), women are dramatically underrepresented in the news, with less than one per cent of women in science and tech spaces serving as news subjects and sources.

Experts have theorised this could be due to societal status beliefs regarding men’s greater competence compared to women, echoing Mildred’s reasoning for being overlooked.

However, other experts have argued under-representation of women occurs because women reporters and women sources do not frequent the places where events are much more likely to be happen like courts, Parliament and police stations.

In addition, individuals situated in key positions like government or police officials, army generals, politicians, and major corporate figures, who enjoy regular access to the media are men.

“I grew up in an environment where men were always the leaders, decision makers and front runners,” says Eve Ruwoko, a climate change journalist from Zimbabwe. “We had limited opportunities and our religion largely dictated everything including how we dress when we settle down and have families and how far we go in terms of education,” she says of the limitations women face in her birth country.

These limitations make her breakthrough all the more encouraging to young girls. For one, she has broken through a male-dominated field in reporting where a content analysis report showed stories about sports, war, environment, climate, politics, opinion and crime were less likely to have a female byline. For another, “I recently published a children’s book called Simuka, an achievement I am proud of. The book has a great message on what good leadership looks like, especially in the midst of a crisis. It encourages young women to rise as leaders in business, within their communities and families,” she says.

Education

Nelly Agyemang, director of Operations for Moringa School has had to have multiple lengthy and passionate “discussions” around whether to prioritize time over output when it came to monitoring productivity and been a firm champion of the latter.

“In traditional work environments, we sometimes act as though employees exist in a vacuum with their sole purpose being to execute on deliverables. However, in a world where the burden of caregiving falls disproportionately on women, this creates an unintentional bias towards them and their ability to reach greater heights in the workplace.” she says, adding that advocating for the prioritization of output meant greater flexibility, which means more opportunities for women to participate and grow in the economy in a way that made sense for them.

If you can’t work from 9-5pm because you have young children, flexible working policies expand your options. Instead of having to choose between taking a break from a career, opting for part time work or stopping work altogether, you can work from 7am to 3pm so you can get the children out the door to school and be ready for them by the time they get home from school without having to make significant sacrifices in your career.

There is no blueprint to how one should work. As long as the output is achieved in a timely and non-disruptive manner, we need to create the flexibility that allows for greater inclusion and progression in the world of work.