Editor, RE: “Ecobank’s Patience Mutesi tips girls on success” (The New Times, September 20). While we are used to hear that our Parliament is dominated by women, I am impressed to learn that women are also beginning to climb the corporate ladder. One day — hopefully — we will also have a woman at the very top of that ladder. From what I just read, however, one thing seems to be taking longer to change in our country. Traditionally, there are domestic chores that have been relegated to women for centuries not because they are the only ones skilled to do them but simply because our society believes they do not concern men. So, what am I trying to say exactly? In the article, it was mentioned that Ms Mutesi wakes up at6a.m to feed her 8-month-old baby and thereafter prepares her 3-year-old son for school (kindergarten I suppose) before she heads to work. I am wondering, therefore, why Rwandan husbands (Ms Mutesi’s husband’s case is justifiable because he works far from home) cannot take care of the older kids while their wives feed the babies. It is high time Rwandan men began to change. Responsibility to care for children should be equally shared. In developed countries, CEOs (men) heading companies five hundred times bigger than Ecobank change their babies’ diapers not because they do not have the ability to hire someone to do it, but because they consider it to be part of their duties as parents; they also do it to create a bond with their babies. But never ask a Rwandan man (living in Rwanda) to do it. You would be ‘demeaning’ if not ‘insulting’ him. What I just described happens in most, if not all, Rwandan families. Kelly
