29 Aug 2013

 Gender has always played an important role in society, hence the overall importance of culture in human evolution. There are some cultural values that are associated with the way societies look at gender issues.

In many African societies, men preferred their first born babies to be boys because this was attached to issues of inheritance and leadership. Men were considered to be natural head of their families; hence the importance of continuity in inheritance and leadership. In some cases girls were aborted.

It was the same in chiefdoms, where boys were expected to continue to carry the baton of their father chiefs when they passed on or they were incapacitated. But the trend seems to have changed nowadays in many societies of the world as girls appear to be preferred to boys.

Contemporary social scientists say this is because women have shifted their roles in many societies. “They can now become chiefs. They hold fulltime jobs. They can play sports. They can make it to the top of the corporate ladder. And they can do it all while looking pretty,” scientists say.

Botswana is not left out in this societal change. A random interview carried out by BOPA revealed that 90 per cent of those contacted preferred baby girls to boys. They say it is easier for a woman to raise a girl child than a boy child, while some women feel that they would relate more easily to girls. Others say girls bring money to the family when they get married while boys leave the family.

Ms Neo Sefhera, who has no child, prefers a girl child because girls seem to be more caring than boys during difficult times such as sickness. She says boys are difficult to raise and also forceful when they want certain things, particularly money.

Ms Sefhera says boys in most cases are involved in socials ills. Another interviewee, who is expecting a baby boy and does not want her name to be revealed, says girls are more affordable than boys; they are cheap to maintain whilst boys are difficult to control. She says girls only become problematic when they reach their teenage stage because their maintenance includes a lot of things such as beautifying them.

At this stage, it is more important for a mother to put a close eye on the girl child because they are naughty and this is the time when they start to make friends particularly with boys and anything including pregnancy can occur, she says.

However, on the contrary, Mr Aggrey Boikanyo, who is planning to have a child, prefers a boy child because he has discovered from his upbringing that boys are easy to socialise with. It was easier for him to socialise with his father than with his mother, he remembers.

Mr Boikanyo says the son will obviously admire his father because they are both male and he sees the father as a role model. The hopeful father imagines what would happen if he was a family man and his wife died leaving him with a mixture of boys and girls for children. He has a view that the girl child is highly secretive to divulge information about her mother’s extra marital affairs.

However, only very few people seem to be comfortable to have both sexes for children, saying parents must treat boys and girls equally even though it is clear mothers are more critical of their sons than daughters. Only one female interviewee claimed that she found it easier to bond well with all her three sons even though she accepts that sons are generally allowed to get away with mischief than daughters.

An expert in social work, Ms Merapelo Kesegofetse, says every child deserves to be treated equally because every child, no matter their gender, has a potential to contribute to society. She says no one chooses to be born male or female but the most important thing is to seek for advice from social workers when one had preferred a girl and they had a boy so they can be given parenting skills.

Ms Kesegofetse, who trained in generic social work, explains that they have realised that communities do not nature children in the same way. She says nurturing a child in not an easy job and that parenting is learned in childhood and repeated when children become parents. She says because no one has a choice of what kind of a child they want, nurturing of children is very important in this regard.

The experiences children have while growing up have a significant impact on the attitudes, skills, and parenting practices they will use with their own children. She explains that in most cases, the girl child is natured to be submissive because they are not empowered like their male counterparts.

When it comes to gender differences toddlers exhibit typical gender differences, suggesting that nature is the major player in the gender divide. But nurturing may be more important than people realize, since children are keenly aware of early gender stereotypes.

A mother summed it all up when she wrote: “Both sexes have lots to offer”. So, are daughters loved more than sons? This mini survey seems to tell us that there is still a bias towards boys, which is sad, perhaps. ENDS