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Gender mainstreaming ezine jan 2017

Page 21

DO YOU SEE ME?​ Aishetu Fatima

Head, Investment Banking West Africa This has been a really fascinating year to witness the seismic changes in today’s global landscape. Many of us laughed at the whole Brexit movement because we knew for a fact that it couldn’t happen, until it did.

We’ve watched the debasing of American politics as the campaign dialogue races to the bottom of centuries-held norms of acceptable behavior among political office aspirants. Donald Trump has demonstrated such deeply divisive actions and uttered very shocking words that one almost wonders if Paul Ryan and Reince Priebus will come out and say this was a grand ole experiment to see how far crazy America would tolerate. The release of the recent audio tape in which he was heard referring to his predilection to sexual assault against beautiful women around him made me shudder. This is 2016. We cannot accept a self-confessed assaulter of women as a candidate for the highest office in the United States of America. We’ve now got Theresa May as the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister. We’ve got Angela Merkel as the most powerful woman in Europe and possibly the entire world for now. We’ve got Hillary Clinton as the first female major party ticket holder for candidate for US president. How can this be happening today? And then the grand finale (or at least I hope) of the verbal assault on women on the global stage occurred when my very own president, Muhammadu Buhari, in response to his wife’s criticisms of his administration said “I don’t

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Gender mainstreaming ezine jan 2017 by Business Engage Association NPC - Issuu