Women want gender equity, not equality – Sadiku

Yewande Sadiku, the former executive secretary and chief executive officer at Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission has advocated that women need equity and not equality in terms of access to opportunities.

Sadiku made this statement in her keynote speech at the Gender Roundtable hosted by Jobberman in partnership with the Women in Management, Business and Public Service (WIMBIZ) and Mastercard Foundation on Thursday at Oriental Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos State.

The purpose of the event was geared at engaging key stakeholders in the private, public and development sectors on contextual actions that can build a gender-balanced society as suggested by the Global Gender Gap 2021 report.

“It is true that women want to have what men want, but they don’t want to be like men. That is why I always take the view that women don’t want equality but equity. We want to have access to the same opportunities for men,” she said.

The investment professional also suggested tips on how women can break the barriers in the workplace such as building a reputation for hard work, being very aggressive and intentional about investing and building a passive income, and surrounding themselves with excellent support.

And also network and leverage friends from different circles, listen and learn from others, and be authentic and unapologetic about your decisions.

Folasade Adefisayo, the Lagos State Commissioner for Education, commenting in the same vein, noted that workplaces that have better environments are made of more women.

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“Women are hardworking, creative, interesting, innovative and disciplined when they put their heart to it and have not been belittled by social expectations,” Adefisayo said.

Adding more to what Yewane said about overcoming barriers, the commissioner advised mothers to train their daughters to be hardworking and independent.

“Bring up your girls to be different and stand out. In breaking the barriers, let us work together with an open mind and be ready to work with anybody,” she counselled.

Another highlight of the event was the launch of the gender barrier report which details the different variables that contribute to women’s underrepresentation in the labour market and those that hamper their economic and employment prospects.

Findings from the report showed that barriers to women’s participation in Nigeria’s labour market are personal barriers, family/organizational barriers and policy/cultural barriers.

“This research will be sent to a lot of private and public organisations. It is our expectation that from this research, a number of them will begin to see and note practical steps to address some of these barriers,” Hansatu Adegbite, the executive director at WIMBIZ said.

Oreoluwa Boboye, the chief executive officer at Jobberman Nigeria on his part said that is why 70 percent of their impact project with the Mastercard Foundation is to combat youth unemployment in the country by training and placing three million of them in decent jobs by 2025 is focused on women.