Why decision makers need to be gender aware and sensitive

I feel that Daily Monitor’s January 19’s story titled ‘’Women banned from occupying front seats in trucks’’ needed correction. This piece shows discrimination that can happen when those in power like the chairman of the market vendors and the chairman of city transporters are not gender sensitive. They will make decisions that harm certain groups of people, in this case women.

Notice that all decision makers here are men, their interpretation of events can be biased and mostly based on the male perspective.

It was interesting to note that the police and the head of the transporters attributed the accidents to speeding, reckless driving and employing relatives who are not qualified. However, ‘the authorities’ chose to leave these reasons aside and latched on to women with short dresses as the cause of ‘’numerous accidents’’. On a closer look, it is not clear how many of the ‘numerous accidents’ are caused by those wearing short dresses as it is claimed, neither was there any driver who confessed that he was distracted by a woman while driving, resulting in an accident.

On face value this may come across as a funny story, I am sure the three reporters probably thought so, however, these actions harm women. For example, it goes to a point where women’s choice of whether to sit at the front or the back is taken away. In addition, even if you are the wife of the driver because of your gender you are denied this privilege.

Secondly, the decision makers have condemned the male drivers as being weak and lacking in will power and principle. Such that each woman who wears a short dress, immediately distracts them from careful driving, but is this really true? if this was the case, how many accidents would we have in this country?

Thirdly, if the case was the wearing of short dresses, would it not have been rational to say those who wear short dresses are not allowed to use the front seats and not have a blanket ban?

What about those who wear long dresses and those who want to sit at the front because of dust and comfort? Won’t it be an injustice to lump them together?

In this case, while making this decision, the leaders did not take into consideration the needs of the different women and men using these trucks. Women and men who are just trying to make a living as opposed to the wild accusations of trying to entice the drivers to lodges for the wrong reasons.

Leaders have a lot of   power that comes with their positions, therefore, they need to be gender aware and check their own gender biases which can lead to decisions that impact hundreds of women whose only crime is that they are simply looking for income and need safe passage to their place of work. 

I hope the city community development officer and the gender officer can support these leaders so that they reverse this decision which goes against the Constitution of Uganda.

Caroline Abilat, Kumi