Why Are We Still Explaining This?

Human beings all over the world arrive in this life as either female or male. This is a universal fact. Even the rare cases of intersex conditions (where biology does not draw clean lines) exist within and because of that same male-female biological framework. So why then is the female half constantly screaming to be treated fairly and given the same opportunities as males? It is a question that pops up more often than it should, usually raised by someone who has never had to fight simply to exist. Many scholarly and socio-economic arguments have been put forth, and I don't pretend to be a messiah, bringing you, gentle reader, onto the path of righteousness. What I aim to do here is put before you the best arguments from the gender ecosystem, the undeniable facts, so next time you find yourself in that conversation, you enter it armed.

As with every significant argument in scholarly or socio-political communication, where we begin, matters. So, we begin from the very beginning. Biology.

Yes, we know men and women are biologically different. That is not disputed. The dispute is that somewhere between the delivery room and the boardroom, the ballot box and the bank, biology became an excuse to build systems, laws and cultures that locked the female half of humanity out. Not just in ancient history. Now. Today.

According to the World Bank's Women, Business and the Law Report, 2.4 billion women of working age do not have equal economic opportunity, and 176 economies maintain legal barriers that prevent their full economic participation. Read that again. Not denied opportunity by fate or personal failing, denied by law, by design. It could look like a woman needing her husband's written permission to apply for a job or open a bank account in her own name. It could mean she cannot inherit land or property the same way her male relatives can. It could mean she is legally allowed to be paid less than a man doing the same work. It could mean she has no legal protection if she is harassed in the workplace or worse, face an unsympathetic justice system if she flees a marriage.

That design is visible everywhere on the African continent, and here in Ghana, the numbers are not a source of pride. Out of 276 parliamentary seats, women occupy only 41, a mere 14.9%, the highest in Ghana's parliamentary history. This is after the passage of the Affirmative Action Act in 2024, after decades of advocacy. The Inter-Parliamentary Union ranked Ghana 147th out of 193 countries in women's parliamentary representation, falling behind Sub-Saharan African neighbours like Rwanda, Senegal and Namibia. Ghana, the first African country to gain independence, sits at 147th. If that does not sting, nothing will.

For those who prefer their convictions backed by spreadsheets, here is the economic argument. The McKinsey Global Institute found that if all countries matched the rate of improvement toward gender parity of the fastest-improving country in their region, it could add as much as $12 trillion to annual global GDP, equivalent to the combined economies of Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom. Twelve trillion dollars, not from a feminist manifesto, but from one of the world's most respected economic research bodies. This means McKinsey looked at all countries in the world making some progress toward closing the gap between men and women in the workforce. These countries were grouped by region, and ranked based on speed and then asked a simple question: what if every other country in that region just kept up with their fastest neighbour? Not overtake them. Not become perfect. Just match the best performer nearby.

If that happened, and nothing more dramatic than that, the world would produce an extra $12 trillion worth of goods, services and economic activity every single year. Women's empowerment is therefore not charity; it's uncollected revenue.

Closer to home, the African Development Bank has made its position equally plain. African women grow most of the continent's food and own one-third of all its businesses, yet they are held back from fulfilling their potential as leaders in public life, in the boardroom, and in growing those businesses, and this, in turn, holds back the potential of the continent's entire economy. Africa is sitting on an engine it refuses to run at full capacity and then wonders why the journey is taking so long. As the UN Economic Commission for Africa stated plainly, "Africa cannot achieve sustainable prosperity if half its potential remains underutilised."

That underutilisation has a political dimension too, because laws change when lawmakers change. Evidence from UNSDG shows that countries with domestic violence legislation have intimate partner violence rates of 9.5%, compared to 16.1% in countries without such laws. Legislation saves lives. And legislation requires representation. In Africa, women's parliamentary representation increased by just one percentage point between 2021 and 2024. At that rate, gender parity in African parliaments will not be achieved until the year 2100. Neither of us will be here to see it.

The good news, and there is always good news worth fighting for, is that when the political will exists, change happens fast. Rwanda, for example, because of strong legal frameworks, political will and institutional reforms, now has women holding 61 % of seats in its Chamber of Deputies. Rwanda did not become Rwanda by accident. It became Rwanda by decision.

So again, you ask, why does women's empowerment matter? It matters because half the world's people deserve to live, work, lead, earn, own and decide, not by the grace of the other half, but by right. It matters because no country, no continent, no community has ever thrived by wasting half its talent. The United Nations says so. The World Bank says so. McKinsey says so. The African Development Bank says so. And the women of Africa, farming the land, running the markets, raising the children, building the businesses, have been saying so for generations, quietly and loudly, in every language spoken on this continent.

May I remind you, gentle reader, that this is not anti-men. Men built many of the systems we are discussing, and many men are working just as hard to dismantle the unjust ones. This is about recognising that a world which works for women works better for everyone: for the children of economically empowered mothers, for the communities governed by representative parliaments, for the businesses run by diverse teams.

The question is no longer whether women's empowerment matters. The question now, and we will dig into it in the issues ahead, is why, knowing everything we know, the world and our beloved continent are still moving so achingly, inexcusably slowly.

Written by Sweety Aborchie