After the famous or infamous Beijing conference of 1995, the darling ‘Women Empowerment’ has since become phenomenally popular among developing nations, especially on the African continent. I believe in fairness for all human beings, and for that matter fairness toward women. The fair treatment of the child is of no less importance to that of the adult, neither is that of grandparent less important to that of the grandson. The humane treatment of the male is as God ordained as that of the female, so is a tender heart toward a woman as appropriate as a loving-kindness shown to a brother. This is because humanity in its diversities still constitutes one human race, with one Creator, and the same destiny. All humans were created by God in His own image (Genesis 1:26-27); and as such all deserve the worth with which the Sovereign Creator values this crown of His creation (humanity). In that case if we should talk of fairness for all human beings then it is in order. In that vein, if females are not treated with fairness, then it must be justifiably rectified.

However, we must be sober in discerning ‘fairness’ from ‘nature perversity’ or ‘nature upsetting’. What I mean is that equality, equity, empowerment and as such must not be confused with ‘feminism; the turning of women into men; or making men women’ as we try to achieving ‘fairness for all’. Many of us have not been sober enough to reflect on the entirety of this new phenomenon (at least on this continent) of ‘women empowerment’. Thank God in Ghana we have relatively better understanding of this dicey complexity of equality between males and females. This is because the typical Ghanaian society has always have a great respect for females as sisters, grandmothers, mothers, queen-mother, etc even as we have for males as brothers, grandpas, fathers, kings and chiefs, etc. This is to say that typically the Ghanaian female is never disrespected or oppressed as projected by the bad wind blowing from the West (detracting everything African), where the devil has been using most of the time as the brewing and dissemination center for his innocent-looking but cankerous agenda to counter whatever has been instituted by God. One must not loss sight of the fact that the battle is not between the male gender and the female helper (Genesis 2: 20; 3), but between all humanity on the one side and the devil on the other; because humanity, even though diverse, males, females, kids and adults, black and white, Fanti and Moshie, all constitute one entity (Genesis2: 20-24). This is why when the devil deceived Eve, Adam automatically fell as well (Genesis 3:6-7). There was no way Adam could have resisted sin forever, because the two were one flesh (Genesis2: 20-24) and so what affects one affects all. Thus humanity fell as an entity but not as individuals; this is why we all still suffer the consequences of Adamic rebellion today.

The Ghanaian society has maintained sanity and sanctity for a while on this dicey issue. Notwithstanding, we are still prone to losing our balance on the issue if we do not take full cognizance resulting in the taking of a firm biblical stands on the matter. Already traces of feminism have begun attacking our sobriety on the issue. This is because the bulk of the world is already deceived; and the noise of the so-called women empowerment has become deafening; and thus has become a virtue for nations and individuals to be at the forefront. For instance, a nation like South Africa, in order to be applauded on the international front, has turned her male populace into women and the women into men. For clarity on the dangers of this pseudo-virtue, we will then use South Africa, which has already suffered the explosion of this gender time-bomb (I believe the best example of the case), as a case study. However, it is proper we defined what the world really means when they chant ‘women empowerment’ or equality, before we moved on.

Definition of ‘Women Empowerment’ The devil, through his numerous vociferous advocates, has made us to believe that women, since the creation of humanity by God, have never been treated fairly. To put it positively, males have often oppressed females. I know that majority of Ghanaians of both sexes will agree with me that this is a lie. After all, Ghana is called ‘our motherland’; and most Ghanaians praise and treat their mothers even as if they never had human fathers. The typical Ghanaman calls his female partner ‘my queen’. We have more pet names and accolades for the female gender in our culture than we do have for males. (We do appreciate the fact that the Ghanaian female populace in turn does acknowledge our headship as males, 1Cor 11:11. Ghanammaa, this is why we never stop as males to heap accolades on you, because you are ‘real females’). This is not to say that all is perfect as far as our treatment of the fairer sex is concerned. No, there are pockets of concerns in our societies on females that need revisions, and this differs from place to place, even as it thus from country to country. In the same vein, since we live in a sin-stained world, there are things against males as well that need changing.

Therefore, we must always keep the balance. It is hypocritical on the world’s part to always cry ‘women and children abuse’ without mentioning ‘men abuse’ as well (sexual harassment has always been seen as vice perpetuated by men, however, in reality women harass men sexually on about 70% proportion. In Ghana, illicit sexual encounter between male and female, when becomes open by way of pregnancy or discovery is either considered rape or as an undue advantage taking as against the female). The world says that during war it is only the women and children who suffer most; what nonsense!!! What about the men who shoot one another and cut each other in the throat? Or do the advocates mean to say that men are not as human as women and children? If so, do they really care about the male child, because it is the same person who grows into a man? Or do the male child loss his humanness with maturity, I mean only human when as a child? Or do they want to say that women have no part in the brewing and the starting of those wars? Is the adage that ‘behind every successful man is a woman’ only true when the man does something positive, and thus women are not as well behind the bad things that their husbands do? And how does that man come about his supposedly success; and who does he toil for? How many ‘garments’ haven’t our sisters, whose husbands can barely change clothing? And who buys for them most of the time? And how many of us don’t get dumped because we care more about our ladies than ourselves, and so in the end we truly don’t look like we desire them? Who is at the sweet receiving end when a man is prosperous and joyful? I’m not pointing all these out as a charge against females or male, but to refute the overblown falsehood being perpetuated by the devil and his advocates that females has always been oppressed and that men, in plain words, are evil.

Now let us define what they mean when they say equality or women empowerment. Do you remember the slogan peddled by the 31st Women’s Movement just after the infamous Beijing Conference (Platform for Action), 1995, Ladies and Gentle? Here is it ‘WHAT MEN CAN DO WO MEN CAN DO BETTER’ bingo! The word of God says by their fruits you shall know them (Matthew 7:20). Now, good people, if these advocates really meant fairness for women, wouldn’t their caption read: ‘WHAT MEN CAN DO WOMEN CAN DO AS WELL’? Even so, my suggested caption is not true, because there are so many things that, in general, men can do that woman can’t; on the other hand there are so many things that women can do that men can’t ( at least not with the same efficiency and effectiveness). What does this fact tells us? This means that there are differing complimentary roles sanctioned by God through both word and nature for the two genders. It therefore becomes disastrous for humanity and nature when the divine sanctioned norms and standards are overturned.

The devil has always sought the downfall of humanity, because his place in the heart and sight of God has been taken by man, since he rebelled against God (Isaiah 14:12-17). He has therefore always sought to get humanity to do contrary to God’s bidden so as to generate the wrath of God against mankind (Genesis 3; Rev 20:8). In reality, what the devil and his advocates mean by women emancipation or empowerment, as captured in the in the slogan, is ‘let’s make women men and men women’. This agendum started subtly in our times with the wearing of pants (pair of trousers) by women in Europe, Ladies and Gentlemen. Whoever tells you that the wearing of pants by women has always been a cultural practice in the West is lying. It was never so, the trend in the West is not even a hundred years old! In South Africa, the trend is only 12 years old, but it is already outrageous (you may call me ‘colo’). Even grannies wear denim pants as if it has always been their culture attire since creation. Someone may query, ‘What has cloth got to do with it? The word of God in Deuteronomy 22:5 says clothing of the two genders must not be inter-worn, because it is an abomination unto God. Now sit back, dear brothers and sisters, this is not ritualistic in any way. It is like the elders saying that ‘do not sing when eating or bathing’, now we know now that it was not because your mother would die or anything, but that to avoid accidents. Same! God does not want males and female to be interchanged or confused in any way – not by role or appearance, not for any ritualistic purposes, but because such has dire consequences, (a sober reflection on all the commands of God would reveal to you that He is the most pragmatic of all, sometimes people cast slur on Christianity with their supposedly scientific yardstick). Ladies and Gentlemen, make no mistake, the argument by feminists on the debate of the wearing of pants in Britain in those days was, ‘that men opposed the wearing of pants by women because they (men) feared that women would be like them (have power as men) if they (women) do wear them’. One feminist called it ‘the power of the pants’. And lo and behold, it has been like that with its catastrophic consequences in the West as we shall understand later in the piece, many women have become men. With the pants battle, even as a kid, my question was, ‘Why have women always wanted to be men, but men not wanting to be women, say conceive a baby? But, may God have mercy, and you good people forgive me, because I was just a kid with a small brain and I could not see into the future, for today I cannot ask that same question anymore, because men want to be women as much as women want to be men!!! The devil and his cronies are fast gaining grounds. What I just said about men, many Ghanaians may not agree, but those in the Diaspora, I know will attest to men wanting to become women (“I’m not only referring to just homosexual practices, but more so some of them have already grown breasts and even worse!).

The Explosion of the Gender Bomb in South Africa: The Case Study

Now South Africa is hypocritically praised by the West, as they make a lot of money from the country; and wrongly adored by the rest of Africa as a model, because Africans have come to love materialism more than real biblical and good cultural values as brainwashed by the devil and his advocates. We no longer subscribe to the word of God that says ‘dinpa ye sen ahonye’ (Proverbs 22:1; Ecclesiastes 7:1). South Africa is a country with the appearance of a Western developed country; and a unique complexity of inner substance of the basest of human depravity, with some few very extraordinary persons. The country is among the top richest in the world in mineral resources; comparatively developed in infrastructure, racially diverse, and harbors some of both the richest and poorest people in the world. It is a country of enormous potential, and beautiful natural physical geographics. However, it is very sad to say that ‘she is in competition with Hell’. I wish she would rather with Heaven.

For the above fact, she has her own version of every basest thing that happens in the West, especially America and Britain. And also sad to say, she takes her copies to the highest deprivable level. This is the case with the so-called ‘women empowerment or emancipation’. It is a fact that women have been suffering abuse in the country because everyone in the country is abused, including the president, so one should not expect the female folks to be spared. However, incredibly, women’s rights and protection has become the fashion of this dispensation, instead of the collective tackling of all the national woes plaguing the beautiful land. This lopsidedness has turned into a deadly vicious circles that do not only feed into the very problem of women abuse that they supposedly want to eradicate, but also has brought about equally devastating social cankers that are fast nibbling the country away. Below are some of the effects of the explosion of the gender time bomb.

1) Dehumanized Male Populace Because of the government’s paranoia, and the whole country as a result, concerning women’s empowerment, the female folks are really empowered at the worst expense of the male folks, unlike the West where a so-called ‘balance’ has been made. Not only are the majority of the non-white men, who constitute about 90% of male populace, are disempowered but dehumanized as well. The results is that many has become armed robbers of all kinds, murderers, pedophiles, rapists, drug addicts and alcoholics, irresponsible fathers and ‘boyfriends’, sodomists and homosexuals, vandals, homeless, jailbirds etc. This dehumanization of the male folks in favor of the overly proud, relatively rich and vociferous female folks has become the big mother of every vice and evil that could happen among human beings. At this juncture, folks so should know the rest of the story. This is the environment the government and the NGOs have created for the beloved solely important women folks they are ‘empowering and protecting’. Some kind of empowerment and protection in a lions den!!! Ladies and Gentle, how could you protect sheep by breeding wolfs around them?

2) No Marriage No-Functional Family System-No Values Imaging, even America, which did the balancing of bringing their female folks at par with the male counterpart, are experience marriage problems with all her concomitant social dysfunction; what would not happen rather, with the dehumanized set of males that has been described above? Now many American women folks are ‘unmarriageable’ because they are ‘too good’ (they have become men in women’s body). It is an open fact that many American men folks from all walks of live are today turning to the former Soviet countries for women who are womanly and thus marriageable.

South Africa haven taken her version of this disastrous upset of nature to the worst level, not only has the alarming high percentage of female unmarriageables, but a disturbing higher number of male unmarriageables. Not only are the men too broke to pay the exorbitant ‘lobola’ (dowry), and sustain a family; but have become ‘beasts’ as well (having a combination of the above inhumane traits) to do dwell with a woman and for that matter a family. The female, not only has she become ‘too good’, but is not ready to settle with a single sex partner as well. Thus promiscuity is the order of the day – free for all sex culture (round-robbing). Where do you think the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence in the world, as championed by South Africa, come from? Majority of pre-apartheid borns do not know their fathers – even some mothers do not know the fathers of the children sometimes – that is how serious. For the lack of functional family system, there are no values instilled, and so do not expect respect because you are an elderly or older. About half of those who get married get divorced.

3) Lack of Skilled Manpower A big dehumanized male populace means lack of all-weather manpower, especially skilled. Real man-power is so scarce that skilled men who could take executive position are rare germs, and thus costs a real fortune to hire the scarcely found ones. Remember, even a superwoman is not likely to perform even with an average man on certain jobs. The woman would not be present all the time for maybe maternity reasons, and when available may not perform at her best some of the time because of adverse hormonal effects. More so South African women even though hardly got married, yet almost all want to have kids (and most have kids without husband or even boyfriend because they say you don’t have to be married to have a kid, you just stop your contraceptives as you sleep around). So how much efficient, comparatively, would a single mother-parent be at work?

The Ghanaian Situation Generally the Ghanaian female folk has never been unfairly treated. In decision making our mothers play a major rule (that is if they do not weld the veto power) in arbitration, planning and execution in the house. If behind every successful man is a woman is true, then our beloved female folks could not be said to be sidelined in this vein. Our queenmothers reflect this in the wider public arena. Even in the enstoolment of a King or chief, they serve as the chairperson of the college of kingmakers. What we eat, wear, do, when to be punished and when not etc are mainly determined by our mothers.

On the economic front, truly speaking, on the average, our female folks are richer than the men folks contrary to what is portrayed by the devil and his advocates. A fair part of the earnings of husbands go into the businesses of the women folks (even though some times they forget that as they boost in the face of our fathers as being the financiers of the family; don’t forget Papa is concentrating on the other projects like the housing and schools fees). The women are rich; why do think sometimes our market baron mothers are so fat they can barely walk (no offense), but our fathers look like pencils sometimes (no offense).

On the social front, our fathers surely respect our mothers and give our sisters preferential treatment sometimes. We protect our sisters and mothers. Most of the time, we spoil our mothers and neglect our oldmen. When I started working for about three years I gave my mother personal money all the time without a cent to my father. Please here, in our Ghanaian society, we must rather cry fairness concerning our men folks. It is very sad that we hold our fathers responsible all the time and punish them when there is any marital problem between our parents. Some of these problems are brought about by our mothers as well. We ostracize them entirely sometimes when there is divorce as if our mothers only gave birth to us. Whatever be the case, the word of God commands us to our honor our parents including our fathers. Naturally, because we spent more time we our mothers, bad wives take undue advantage of this and indoctrinate us favorably towards them but make monsters of our fathers. I will honor my mother, but I will not neglect my oldman, because it will come back to me (aba a wode bo Takyi no wode bebo Baa dabi). We sons are guilty here even more than our sisters. Fairness must be fairness to all not that pseudo virtue of pampering females to the neglect of males. I could hardly catch a lift with my fellow male during public transportation crises until I hide behind my sister, why?

Conclusion Ladies and Gentleman, I could go on and on telling you more and more of the devastating effects of this gender time bomb, where men are made not just women but menacing beasts, and women made men. All that I, in short, want to make us aware is that, this growing phenomenon has a very catastrophic anti-God and thus anti-human and anti-nature consequences. This canker even though has not been so fast in the Ghanaian society, however, country folks, we must not fool ourselves, it is slowly but surely rearing it’s ugly head. Just recently a columnist on Ghanaweb was recounting successes that women have chocked with the present government. I’m not saying it is bad, but let us not do it at the expense of males because it is the man who is suppose to marry a woman and cater for her, not the other way round. That is why if I could afford to send only one of my kids to school, I would rather a boy, so he could be a husband, and a good one, in future (at the end of the day the wife is the beneficiary). As for the girl, so long as she grows into a woman, she would find a husband to look after her, but I can’t say the same of my boy. In this vein, I beg to differ with the great late Kwegyir Aggrey on the importance of educating a woman at the expense of a man, I therefore propose that ‘If you educate (empower) a woman, you do well, but if you educate (empower) a man, you keep nature on the divine course’, for the woman was fashioned for the man, but not the man for the woman (1Cor 11:9). Ladies and Gentleman, when a man is successful, all that he thinks of is finding a woman to make her happy, but most of the time when a woman is successful everybody would have to feel it, especially her fellow women would even be the most victims of her heart-directed tyranny; and if you dare challenge her, she would stop at nothing in your downfall. This has been natural, that is why God deemed it fit rather to give leadership role to the man. Remember the first time the woman led it has been disastrous to date (Genesis 3); and take it or leave it, anytime women lead, men would have to be women; which contravenes the principles of nature as given by the Creator. And this thus spells disaster. Just recently, the president of Ghana National Association of Teachers, GNAT, warned, saying it is good that female enrolment has gone skyrocketing, however, if care is not taken, we would have to embark on the same drive for males in the very near future. Therefore we must treat our female folks decently, but we do not have to replace male folks by them. Let us beware of all the anti-God, anti-human nonsense blowing from the West. Until they invaded our privacy, we had no problems; now they want us to leave in their world but they don’t’ share with us, in fact they continue to steal the little we have. A word to the wise is enough!!! God bless you, folks, and God bless Ghana. Amen!

Ebenezer Boamah
Email: ebenbo@yahoo.com
(The author is a man of God whose mandate is to national interest of all spheres, because the spirit is not void of the flesh).