The wife of Taraba State Governor, Mrs Anna Ishaku, in her good will message highlighted the reasons for gender parity in “Breaking the Bias” and called for more conferences to address the issue.
She said this at the 2022 Annual Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association Women Forum (NBAWF) held at the Civic Centre in Lagos.
The theme of the 2022 conference is “The Invisible Hands of Gender Bias; Championing Collective Change”
“Generally and traditionally boys are preferred to girls; the girls are brought up to do house chores and serve even their younger brothers
“She is expected to play with doll toys, while the boys play with gun toys; she is expected to behave better, to marry earlier, and sometimes denied education as it is termed a waste of money
“She is termed not good enough to be a leader, or to assume great responsibilities; she is refused certain jobs becsuse girls are termed too emotional for those jobs
“She is seen as the weaker vessle and refused her share of her parents inheritance; All these can be classified under the invisible hands of gender bias,” she said
According to Ishaku, these are the ways gender biases influence our behaviour and give legitimacy to these patterns of inequality within and across our society.
She, urged that constant interactions such as the present forum, be organised to sustain the tempo around issues of gender bias, adding that routine advocacy and sensitisation is also a way out.
“If we continue with these kinds of meetings, discussions, definelty one day we will be able to break the bias,” she said