A Zambian Female Journalist's Perspective

ANN ZULU Writes Despite having more female Journalists than men in Zambia, majority of people who hold top positions in the media are men, while women are the assistants or nothing.

In the Zambian media, It really doesn't matter whether the females are better, being female makes them only good enough to assist the male and be juniors.

As a matter of fact, “senior” positions are exclusively reserved for the best man, while the best woman is always his assistant or nothing.

In many cases, the best journalists are women, but hey they are still made to aspire for the second best position or nothing, NO MATTER how good they are.

This brings me to women in politics...... There are fewer females at the top because the enthusiasm to succeed, compete and beat the male counterparts has been killed.

Only a few women are able to break free from this societal-inflicted mental incapacitation, and go higher. And these few are most of the females you see at the top.

There are even cases where people have refused to vote for a particular candidate just because she is female.

I know we have come a long way from where we started the cause to break the gender barriers, but there is still a lot to be done.

We are still very far away from where we should be. We can do more as individuals and as people, we can start in our little capacities.

*Let us stop giving boys the impression that being males automatically entitles them to be better than half the world’s population.

*Vote the people who you genuinely believe are best suited for a particular position, irrespective of gender.

*Encourage girls as much as you encourage boys to aspire for top and leadership positions.

*Do not give female children the impression that the best they can be is second to a man.

*Let every individual have a fair chance to compete, and let the best person (not best male) win.

*When it comes to choosing, appointing or electing a leader, we stand a better chance of choosing the best from a whole population than we do from choosing from half the population.

Leadership is a human quality which actually cuts across both genders!!!!!