The most remarkable thing about Rwanda’s Parliament is not the war-damaged building that houses it … It is inside the hilltop structure, from the spectator seats of the lower house, that one sees a most unusual sight for this part of the world: mixed in with all the dark-suited male legislators are many, many women.”

— Marc Lacey, The New York Times

Marc Lacy reports that Rwandan women have claimed a victory few would have imagined possible ten years ago: they now comprise up to 48.8 percent of Rwandan parliament seats— a figure that surpasses most nations’ statistics on female political inclusion.  

“Before the genocide, women always figured their husbands would take care of them,” said Aurea Kayiganwa, the director of a national organization representing Rwanda’s many war widows. “But the genocide changed all that. It forced women to get active, to take care of themselves. So many of the men were gone.”

These milestones, however, do not reflect an equalization of gender roles in Rwanda. Patriarchal traditions still uphold male leadership as a dominant normative standard.

But women like Ms. Odette Nyiramirimo, coordinator of the Senate social affairs and human rights committee, have taken it up as a challenge:

“Men are watching us,” Ms. Nyiramirimo said. “They wonder if we’ll rise up to a higher level. We’re learning fast, because we have to. We say to each other that we can’t be as good as the men – we have to be better.”

Toyin