Meru Woman representative Elizabeth Kailemia has called on Kenyan men to embrace women leadership in various capacities as she led Meru women in marking this year’s international day for women.
Speaking during a visit to Meru women prisons where the celebrations were held, Ms Kailemia said that it was time that all Kenyans including men accepted that women were the least corrupt, motherly and at a better position to nurture both the boy and the girl child.
She added that parents should also ensure that they take their daughters to school to pursue education to their best levels in order to compete favourably with men.
“We are the caretakers of our children and if we are educated, then we are able to offer better parenting and bring up a better generation,” said Ms Kailemia.
She added: “Everybody should embrace us and help us grow. At the moment we are doing better because we have many girls in schools who are doing even better than boys, courtesy of empowerment”.
She said women had come a long way in fighting for leadership in the country adding that what they require at the moment is confidence to compete well with men.
“As women, we have achieved a lot in mentoring our girls and we call upon men to follow suit so that all our children can grow well together and have a bright future,” said Ms Kailemia.
On the other hand, Ms Kailemia called on fellow women to support each other and lead positive competition even in political arena, whether they are competing for a similar seat or not.
“Apart from politics, there are various leadership roles in the country that can be taken up by women and therefore we need to wake up and seize the opportunities,” said Ms Kailemia.
“When we started competing for this seat in 2013,” she added, “we were very few and men would wonder where we were even after an opportunity was created for us. At the moment we are a good number of us and this indicates that we have woken up”.
She called on women leaders to hold each other’s hand in order to do away with the negative narrative that women are their own enemies.