Gender inequality starts in the home | Matshepo Msibi | TEDxLytteltonWomen

it is saturday the 13th of september 1975. fraternal twins named tepo le matebo are born to two loving parents in pretoria the capital city of south africa zeppo is the boy and his name means hope whilst matsepo is the girl and her name means she who brings hope equality established at birth right when the twins are seven years old seppo the boy is taken to karate lessons not only because he needs to learn how to fight and to defend himself but also so that he can be able to defend his twin sister and his future

wife at the same time matepo the girl is taught how to wash dishes and how to clean the house studies that have been conducted by historic japanese senseis indicate that being a karadeka doesn't only teach you self-defense but that it teaches you other salient skills like discipline hard work mental strength resilience and respect so when the twins were 10 years old their parents decided to buy them a bmx bicycle so this bicycle belonged to both of them equally however in the home it was called tebow's bike this created an impression in both the twins mind

that it belonged more to temple than it belongs to matapo so temple then monopolized on the bicycle he wrote it all the time matepo got onto the bike once fell off the bike and he never got onto any bike until he she was 35 years old and she was married to a cyclist studies that have been conducted around bicycles as an intermediate form of transport especially in sub-saharan african villages indicate that 81 of boys have access to and use bicycles on on a daily basis to get to school and to get to work while only

48 of girls have access to to bikes and they use them on a daily basis why you ask partly because there's still societal fear around the vulnerability of women or females reproductive organs there is a a fear that if you're a girl and you start riding a bike at an early age you run the risk of being better than being unable to have children when you're older so what this means though is that boys who learn how to ride bikes at an early age and have access to bicycles therefore have an opportunity to go to

school and get educated and they also have an opportunity to find work and to go in and and look for work when the twins were 16 years old teppo the boy was taught how to drive a car so driving a car means that you get to do chores that i call strategic some people call them functional where you learn skills like decision making communication networking and just overall people relation skills while matsepo the girl in the home she was taught how to keep the family and how to look after her younger siblings in preparation for

her being an amazing mother and an excellent wife in future incidentally when the twins were 21 years old temple the boy is the one that taught her his twin sister matebo how to drive a car my name is mate boom sibi and what i've just shared with you is my story why am i telling you my personal business i'm telling you this story not because i'm seeking or asking for for sympathy or i'm asking you to feel sorry for me on the contrary i have been able to achieve a lot i have been able to

succeed irrespective of how i was raised and irrespective of for society says girls can or cannot do i am telling you my business my story because i would like us to give gender inequality a human face i would like us to discover and be aware that gender inequality is socialized in the home and that if we are very intentional about dismantling it and chipping away at it we need to start in the home because if we don't start dismantling it in the home we can forget about being able to dismantle it or destroy it in

the work environment my story is not unique especially on the african continent in africa there's 9 million girls between the ages of 6 and 11 who will never get an opportunity to go to school why because they were born girls that's it as compared to 4 million boys so there's been a lot of studies and dialogues and conversations and even research conducted in the last decade around gender equality so much so that people are starting to get gender equality fatigue people are tired of the conversations and and the dialogues so how do we move from

conversation to action we move from conversation to action by getting awareness around how it shows up in the home we move by once we are away making decisions to stop or to change those behaviors we move by changing behavior so in order for me to help you in this movement from dialogues to to action i would like to introduce to you what i call the inequality triangle the gender inequality triangle it is a lens that i am offering you to wear on a daily basis it is a lens that i believe if we were on

a daily basis that we should be able to start chipping away at gender inequality so we all know that a triangle has got three angles so the first angle of our triangle is scanning the room so what does scanning the room mean scanning the room means when you walk into a room any room every room you look around and you ask yourself are we all here you ask yourself are we all represented in this room creating self-awareness because if you're not away if asi pelenga we are not all here you you will never solve for

it the room could be a literal room it could be a meeting room it could be a leadership a political a religious especially it could be a community meeting where you look around the room and you ask are we all here the room can be a panel discussion where you look at the panel and you ask is everybody represented on the panel are there enough women on the panel um as much as men the room can be on the panel discussion you check that the questions that are being posed at women are they the same

questions that are being posed at men the room could be your home it could literally be your kitchen where you ask and you check when you're coming into your kitchen are you only asking your daughter what's for dinner and you're not asking your son the same question so once you've created awareness and you know that asi pele langer we are not all here you move to the second angle so i've broken down my second angle into two parts but my second angle is called solutioning the first part of solutioning is creating corporate awareness so the

fact that i am aware that asipelanga we are not all here doesn't mean that my neighbor is away so how do i do that by asking my neighbor are we all here part of the reason why my neighbor might not be away is because we all walk through life wearing different lenses and these lenses are informed by our background our history even our privilege informs our different lenses so it is possible for you to walk into a room into a meeting room into a boardroom and see that asi pela langa we are not all here

but your neighbor doesn't see it so it becomes our responsibility to identify it but also to bring everybody along the second part of my um of of solutioning is actually coming up with the solution so now that you're away that asi perellanga what are you going to do in order to change the gender and equal environment what actions are you going to put in place what decisions are you going to make what are you going to stop doing and start doing once you have decided on what that decision is once you've answered all those big

amazing questions you then move to the third and last angle of our triangle that angle is action as sage once said [Music] finding a hundred solutions and implementing none is an exercise in futility therefore we need to stop being a generation of futile exercises i want to offer you an example of a south african who implemented in my id in my knowledge in my idea in my assumption who implemented the inequality triangle i think he did it exceptionally well his name is rems maborte he is a south african he is a social commentator he is

a journalist an entrepreneur a pr coach and his most prized title is the chief volunteer officer of future kings so rem scanned his environment his environment is the community he scanned the environment and he realized as pele lange we are not all here he realized that as a nation we are raising a nation a generation of um fatherless boys he realized that we are raising a generation of boys that do not have role modeling in their lives and therefore the consequences of that is the social ills and the social challenges that we are facing that

are man-made and men based he then went into solutioning and he then asked some of his friends some of his colleagues to say are you guys aware that we are all not here are you aware that we have a number of households that do not have father figures of or male role models for their boy children second portion of my of the second angle he then went into solutioning and he said what do i need to do in order to create or develop male role modeling for boys especially boys who come from single parent households

that do not have a male role model in their lives he went into action he then decided to establish a program for boys a program that provides mentorship for boys a program that teaches and empowers boys around manhood and chips away at toxic masculinity traits that we see manifesting itself into social ills in in our communities and our and our locations he became that guy he became part of the solution so let me come back to my story with my parents i personally think that my parents were able in their mature life to implement the

inequality gender inequality triangle very well so they scan their environment the environment is the home and they then realize that you cannot raise generation x's the same way the the you cannot raise millennials the same way that you raise generation x's because you know you need to prepare them differently they need a different skill set and they need to be multifaceted they went into solutioning and they said okay so what are some of the things as parents that we need to do that we need to change what are some of the decisions that we need

to put in place in order for us to create an environment in our home that allows our children to be able to be global citizens that contribute towards and participate in in society they went into action and they created what i call an equitable shay or an equitable allocation of chores in the home so my siblings that come after me were raised completely different from how i was raised therefore in a in the makhato household it doesn't matter whether you're a boy or a girl so irrespective of whether you're a boy or a girl you

would find yourself in the kitchen you'd find yourself in the car you'd find yourself under the car you'd find yourself in the garden you'd find yourself painting the walls you'd even find yourself riding the bike so if my parents who are of pensionable age were able to become part of the solution you don't have an excuse not to become part of the solution why do you need to be part of the solution why does this matter so much this matters because if you don't become part of the solution and start dismantling gender inequality in the

home number one you will never dismantle it in the workplace but number two and most importantly if you don't become part of the solution nine million girls between the ages of six and eleven on the african continent will continue being excluded from education if you don't become part of the solution your mother because everybody has a mother your mother your sister your daughter your wife will continue getting paid less for work of equal value in closing i want to tell you that it is not the responsibility of government it's not the responsibility of feminists it's

not even the responsibility of women alone it is all our responsibility therefore i want to stand on the words of one of our greatest presidents in south africa president nelson holisata mandela who once said in one of his speeches it is in your hands therefore i charge you today that it is in your hands to make the right decision for the girls on the continent it is in your hands to make the right decision for humanity i thank you [Applause] you