She disagreed with the assertion women were their own enemies which had discouraged them from aspiring for leadership roles and in decision-making and admonished them to disregard such a claim.

“In most cases, our male counterparts are the architects of the rivalry and the unhealthy competitions among women, and the men should stop causing hindrance to the progress, growth of women to enable us to contribute meaningful to nation building instead of sitting on the fence,” Madam Gomashie bemoaned.

She threw the challenge in her closing remarks at a Gender Advocacy to Parliament (GAP) town hall meeting at Aflao in the Ketu South Municipality which was organised by Parliamentary Network Africa (PNAfrica), a civil society parliamentary monitoring organisation working across the continent with funding support from the French Embassy.

The meeting, the first under the GAP project for women and women organisations discussed gender angles to parliamentary meetings, ensuring women MPs received feedback from the groups to inform their work on the floor of Parliament.

Madam Gomashie identified challenges to women’s involvement in politics and other fields, and suggested ways to addressing them, adding that “women are not their own enemies but the culture determines how to think including patriarchal system, socialisation processes, assigning gender roles to boys and girls which pulled women back early in life.

“I encourage women to conquer their fears, discrimination, perceptions and all other obstacles to attain their hopes, aspirations, dreams. I will use myself as an example as I defied all odds, closed my ears to discouraging comments, soldiered on, and I noted I would not have made history as the first female MP from the area if I had given up,” she touted.

Gilbert Boyefio, Programmes Manager, PNAFRICA, intimated that the country must be seen to be making efforts to attain the Sustainable Development Goal 5 on gender equality, empowerment of women by retaining the current number of female MPs and vote more women to the next Parliament to advocate on their behalf.