User:Beatriceberniceboateng

Correcting A Historical Imbalance Published on July 7, 2012 At a very tender age of 16 years, Beatrice Bernice Boateng had already started nurturing her ambition to become a politician. Her main reason at that time was to also address the crowds like the men did when she went to political rallies with her stepfather. “Only males addressed the crowd even though the crowd was mostly made up of both males and females,” Ms Boateng, popularly called BB, says. This bothered BB, so she took up the challenge of becoming a politician. After climbing through the political ladder and breaking societal and cultural barriers, she is now a Member of Parliament representing the New Juaben South constituency in the Eastern Region. Honourable Beatrice Boateng, as she is now called, represents a drop in the ocean of the number of women needed in leadership positions. Many women with equal potential and capabilities are not coming forth to contest for political positions, most because of stereotype that has virtually become a stigma that women who go into politics cannot be controlled by their spouses. There is also the perception that women politician are somehow loose and can be ridiculed, which their husbands cannot stand. These are some of the frontiers women have to break in order to make their impact to be felt in the society. However, gender activists have a different antidote in solving low women participation in decision-making process. In order to increase the number of women at the helm of affairs of the nation, women activists have suggested the use of affirmative action to close the yawning gap between women and men in decision-making positions. Hilary Gbedemah, a lawyer and rector of the Law Institute, says the use of affirmative action is to correct the effects of discrimination against women in the past. “It is to correct historical imbalance,” she notes.