ARUNGA: You’re wrong about high school mothers, Magufuli

In fact, not only does he not get that there is no need for a state-wide declaration against high school girls who choose what to do with their bodies and progeny (if indeed choice is involved) but he also seems a bit confused about how a woman’s reproductive system works. PHOTO| FILE| NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • I don’t get it, and clearly Magufuli doesn’t get it either, though in a massively different way.
  • In fact, not only does he not get that there is no need for a state-wide declaration against high school girls who choose what to do with their bodies and progeny (if indeed choice is involved) but he also seems a bit confused about how a woman’s reproductive system works.

For the most part, when Magufuli became president, I supported this idea, much like when Matiang’i was put in charge of education. An iron fist made sense to me, unlike the series of the same name. I thought he was going to bring some much-needed sanity to this glorious African nation. Tanzania in itself is not exactly the most female-friendly place around. Remember the lady they stripped who was wearing a decent-length skirt, who had to be rescued by the police? Not to mention if you’ve been to Tanzania, and talked to the women there, you would know that generally, it isn’t the safest place to be a woman, or a woman walking alone, or a woman walking at night. Unfortunately, this is a familiar story, even here.

But we ignored it because the good outweighed the bad. Look! His wife was admitted in a national public hospital! Can you imagine any minister – or even MCA, much less a president – taking his wife to Kenyatta Hospital? During an emergency? This is regardless of the fact that Kenyatta has all the best doctors around, in terms of experience. It just has a bad reputation as a public hospital. Granted, the toilets aren’t the greatest, but truly, in spite of the ageing machines and the sometimes hasty unfeeling nurses, it’s still one of the best ones around.

But I digress.

LOOSELY SEXIST STATEMENTS

I supported Magufuli until this latest incident, where he casually said some loosely sexist statements about high school mothers. He said that all high school girls who get pregnant should not be allowed to go to school – because their lives are basically over. And that if they are allowed to stay in school, they will ‘infect’ other students with their baby-making abilities, and soon we will have Standard One girls having children.

Wow.

First, the good – at least, for once, in the predictable history of patriarchy, he did not leave the men out and assume women are asexual, generating babies by themselves and with themselves in the comfort of their biologically sanctioned fornication. The penalty for the man responsible is that he goes to jail for 30 years. Of hard labour. Which to be honest, seems a bit dramatic, but then again, so does the lady’s penalty.

I mean how really are you going to prove this guy is the dad? You’re going to do DNA testing for the approximately 8,000 girls in Tanzania who get pregnant every year?

And this nonsense statement about the fact that their lives are ended. I bet he wouldn’t say that if he had a single mother. Or if his daughter got pregnant, or his son impregnated someone. Why are people so quick to assume that, one, single mothers are unsuccessful and useless, and two, that people who come from single-parent homes are incapable of dealing with life? History has proven time and time again that this is laughably false. A quick Google search will immediately prove you wrong, detailing lists of people from single-parent homes who are doing as well as their peers. Barack Obama. Halle Berry. Jon Stewart. Jay Z. The only female president of Iceland, for 16 years, was single mother, Vigdis Finnbogadottir. There are even studies to show this. You can literally be president whether you have had a baby before marriage, or not. So what’s all the fuss about?

I don’t get it, and clearly Magufuli doesn’t get it either, though in a massively different way. In fact, not only does he not get that there is no need for a state-wide declaration against high school girls who choose what to do with their bodies and progeny (if indeed choice is involved) but he also seems a bit confused about how a woman’s reproductive system works. Having a baby at Standard 1? At the age of 6, or 7? There must be anomalies somewhere but the general age of a girl’s first menses tends to be around 10, if early, 13 on average. How, exactly, is this pregnancy ‘trend’ contagious?

Someone needs to save Tanzania from Magufuli. This is me pointing out a splinter with a log hanging out of my eye, but surely, when the president of a country is still making patriarchal, ignorant shaming statements like these, everything needs an overhaul. It begs the question – what nonsense decree is he going to make next? Because it would appear that the more we ignore it, and say that the good is outweighing the bad, the more the bad gets.