Public Relations Officer for the Young Women’s Movement, an activist and student of the Ghana Institute of Journalism, Mateenah Odoi, has highlighted one major wrong people do though they talk about equity.
Speaking at the special International Women’s Day edition of e.TV Ghana’s African Women’s Voices which featured female students and entrepreneurs, as well as some prominent women from Global Media Alliance, Mateenah threw light on the fact that people talk about equity but fail to acknowledge the fact that equity is supposed to put both men and women on the same level, although we may not be at the same starting position.
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She shared a personal instance of property sharing between herself and her brother saying, “After my parents’ demise, the other family members shared the property between my brother and I. My brother is two years younger than I am but they still said he was the man so he is supposed to take care of me”.
According to her, her family members put the building indenture and everything in her brother’s name regardless of the fact that she is the eldest.
Mateenah also shared how she has lost two potential tenants surprisingly because she is a woman. Per her words, a man and his wife saw the advert she put up on tonaton for one of her mother’s houses which she is renting out and showed interest. When the woman came to take a look at the building, she refused to rent it telling Mateenah to keep the house because she’s a woman and young, and that she can live in it with her husband when she gets married.
Her current tenants also refuse to pay rent directly to her but rather through her brother even though they signed agreement papers with her name on them. They claim they are uncomfortable paying to her because she is a woman.
This is a problem that being an activist, Mateenah seeks to address and possibly, bring an end to as it is directly affecting her as well as a lot of women out there.
By: Maureen Dedei Quaye