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Women Should Seize Opportunities – Retšelisitsoe Matlanyane

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Monday, August 28th, 2017
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CENTRAL Bank Of Lesotho Governor, Retšelisitsoe Matlanyane, has called on women to stop holding back and aggressively push for success in the workplace, business as well leaving lasting legacies in their communities.

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Dr Matlanyane made the call during yesterday’s Women’s Month commemorations at the National University of Lesotho (NUL) in Roma.

Women’s Month is celebrated in August as a tribute to the more than 20 000 South African women who marched to the Union Buildings in Pretoria on 9 August 1956 protesting against the extension of pass laws to women in that country.

The Roma event was held under the theme, “Promotion of equitable participation in decision making at all levels”.

Dr Matlanyane said despite the existence of laws which disadvantaged them, several women still succeeded in rising to the highest positions in their chosen fields.

She urged women to strive for success despite the challenges.

“If a woman can run a home then she can run a country,” Dr Matlanyane said.

“I am saying this because of the power that I have realised that women have but because of lack of self-confidence, they tend to hold back.”

She also called on women to shun destructive practices that reinforced patriarchal stereotypes and urged them to concentrate on nurturing children to become leaders and good citizens.

“Lately we see some women who are more focused on unproductive things and this gives women a bad name.

“Women are capable of many things and if one chooses to go around spreading rumours about others then they are wasting time which they could spend doing something that will impact positively on other people’s lives.

“We tend to leave our children unsupervised. After work we are tired and do not take our time to talk to them. We leave them to watch whatever they please on television and ask ourselves later when they turn against us what has gone wrong,” Dr Matlanyane said.

For his part, NUL Vice Chancellor, Professor Nqosa Mahao, said one of the sustainable development goals was that of gender equity which aimed to achieve equal participation of women in all aspects of life.

He said this focuses on five priority areas such as increasing women’s leadership and participation, ending violence against women and engaging women in all aspects of peace and security processes, enhancing women’s economic empowerment and making gender equality central to national development planning and budgeting.

“NUL has produced women of outstanding achievements and high level decision makers such as Dr Matlanyane, United Nations Women Executive Director and former South African deputy president, Phumzile Mlambo,” Professor Mahao said.

He said NUL had a research driven strategic goal to contribute to humanity’s advancement which began with teaching, learning and designing gender sensitive curricula and taking an interdisciplinary approach to understanding gender issues.

“NUL has a significant role to play in generating research output that will aid in mainstreaming gender into national planning and budgeting,” he said.

NUL Pro-Vice Chancellor, Professor ‘Manthato Lephoto, told the Lesotho Times that the commemoration also aimed at discussing the sharing of responsibilities in decision making.

She said it was time women took part in decision making in households and work places hence the emphasis on participation the celebration’s theme.

“This year we are aware that decision making is crucial because the decisions affect everyone and we are have realised that when decisions are made by one party they tend to be biased in favour of the decision maker.

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