Reserved seats for women is a right

I REFER to the letter “Reserved seats is not gender equality” (The National, June 22) by Daniel Namba.
Gender equality is a right, something which has been overlooked for so many years.
Since PNG is a custom-based country, men tend to lead in everything with little or no input at all from the opposite sex.
How then can you say that this is gender equality?
In every household and community in PNG, it is women who do most of the hard work.
It is the right for a little girl to go to school and not to look after her siblings or sell goods at the market to provide for her whole family.
Why are there more girls selling goods at markets than boys?
It is also a young woman’s freedom to walk with her head held high and not to look over her shoulders because she is scared.
Why must men harass, threaten or rape women?
The writer is right to say our Constitution stipulates that there must always be equality in all walks of life.
But this is not happening because of the mentality that men are more superior.
Many women have contested in the elections but were unsuccessful.
Women will continue to be unsuccessful in elections because men look down on them.
If women were to have reserved seats in Parliament, we will have equal opportunity to put forward our views in Parliament and Papua New Guineans can see that we are good leaders too.
The writer correctly said “now we see that more emphasis is placed on women than men in terms of education, employment and promotions amongst others”.
All these rights were overlooked in the past.
We are now given equal opportunity and are practising our rights to equal participation in what was once a male-dominated area – the Parliament – and that, my friend, is gender equality being finally exercised. 

Disgusted woman
Via email