By ELSIE EYAKUZE

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We have been living with Covid-19 for almost two years now. It has upended the world as we knew it, an equal opportunity virus. Rich countries and poor alike find themselves at the mercy of a disease that keeps shifting away from all the efforts we make to contain it. While this gives me no joy, I must point out the equalising effect of this. Together in misery, we are the world.

I remain more interested in solutions than problems, but when I was asked to write about the role of women in a post-covid-19 world I found myself stumped. Is this a matter of leadership? What does gender have to do with it? Perhaps I can think of this in terms of numbers? After all, there are always slightly more women than there are men in most societies.

Unlike other diseases Covid-19 doesn’t discriminate by sex as far as I am aware of. It only cares to bully those who have pre-existing conditions, and those who are a bit longer in the tooth. The only angle that I can perceive in this situation is an economic one.

Poverty is unkind to people, it is much more responsible for ill health than anything else. Africa isn’t poor per se, but we don’t have cash money, it keeps escaping us. And because we remain stubbornly patriarchal the ones who have the least of it are women, children, youth and disempowered men.

I guess that this is why Africa was expected to suffer the worst of all from Covid-19. We still struggle with malaria, we have zoonotic diseases like Ebola fretting us all the time, HIV/Aids continues to rampage through our societies and we are cash poor.

Despite all this, the data seems to be suggesting that Africa is not affected in the way that was expected. I live in a country that denied we even had the disease until May of this year, and I can assure you that we suffered for it.

A lot of people caught “atypical pneumonia,” we lost loved ones, the trauma is real. And yet, somehow, we have survived. What can we attribute this to, what should we do to guarantee our continued survival?

The data shows that what seems to have helped is the youth of the continent. We are overwhelmingly young. I do not think that we can leverage this advantage if we keep on being stubbornly patriarchal.

Women are the powerhouse of Africa when it comes to agriculture and health, we always have been and we always will be.

However, it is also true that our participation on the formal economy is underwhelming. We cannot afford to continue like this, undervaluing the talents and the sheer force of half the population. Often we feminists are misunderstood to be emotional, but there is a stone cold motivation in there too. Cash money.

Again, the data is there. If you want a society to do well, the money is best put in the hands of women. We are much more consistent in taking care of our social networks, we are much more intense about healthcare and will show up at the hospitals.

We are consummate consumers and loyal voters. And when an epidemic shows up? We are on the frontlines of protecting ourselves, the little ones and the elders. In order to do all of this well, we need cash money. Not hand-outs, just simple respect and pay for the work that we carry out.

And we take our people to vaccinate, from the little babies to the old folks. If there is one area in which we can show our strength with immediate effects, this might be it. Along with Covid denial Tanzania suffered a strong anti-vaccination movement that has now become a habit. It is a sad reality, and a hard one to fight.

The lack of logic astounds me sometimes: the same people who make sure their children eat right and get their shots are capable of turning around and denying that modern medicine is based on safe science. And then they go off and buy Panadol in the same breath.

Given all of these circumstances, what indeed is the role of women in a post-Covid Africa? I remain convinced that it is economic power. Not empowerment, mind you- that word has been misused and abused beyond recognition.

But I believe that when women’s work is recognised and remunerated accordingly, everyone benefits from it. The trickle-down effect is intensified, social investment is increased, all of the things that support health and well-being get much more attention. The impulse to buy Boeings with cash-money gets controlled better.

We are a young continent, yes, and we tend to find a way to survive epidemics. If Covid wants to get us, it will have to face the women of Africa first and we are formidable. That might be the factor X in the equation.

Elsie Eyakuze is a consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report: E-mail: [email protected]