Why don’t women deliver mail?
Did you know that there aren’t any post women in Zimbabwe? I know that does not sound right but I was talking to a manager of a post office and she said that when they advertise for postal delivery people women do not come up to bring their applications. I was at least relieved when I spoke to a lady manager. Why is that women are not coming up for postman jobs. Is it because they are afraid of the bicycle or the long distances you need to cycle delivering mail. Or is it that the postman title is a way to make women scared of trying out for the job?
Wednesday, May 19th 2010 at 9:42 pm
Interesting observation, quite true as well. I think Zimbabwean women should step in the traditionally masculine occupations. I hardly notice that overseas as there are women in the postal service!
Thursday, May 20th 2010 at 1:22 pm
its sad to note that the women in zimbabwe working in post offices a great number of them are just tea ladies and cleaners.I hope women are challenged.
Friday, May 21st 2010 at 6:49 am
Interesting observation. But that’s a tough one. On one hand I want to say that it’s sad that women are not being represented in the cadres of postal delivery. But on the other, I also want to say that’s good – it it means they are getting more challenging work elsewhere.
Being a postman is not particularly mid-stimulating, I don’t reckon.
But I guess the real reason why women don’t take up the initiative in that area is because all our lives we’ve seen men do that work and just think it’s their arena. And then we make a job that anyone could do seem like a gendered thing.
It’s all about mindsets and patriarchy.
Wednesday, May 26th 2010 at 2:43 pm
I wrote to the then PTC about 20 years ago on the 0% of female postal delivery staff. Looks like nothing has changed. I got a letter back saying that the reason was that women’s legs were not strong enough to ride the bicylces. Such fictitious physical ‘defects’ have been used to deny the vote to women and black people in the past, but such arguements try to disguise the real motive: to maintain the priviledge of the less capable (if you exclude 50% or more of a population from opportunity, you will give oppotunties to ‘less than able’ at the expense of the ‘able’. Fact!). I am not sure how many postal delivery staff are employed, but if say it is 1000 country wide, this means that the current system is denying 500 able women the opportunity to employment and the freedoms that an independent income implies. This amounts to 500 jobs x e.g. $100 / month = $ 50,000. That is $50,000 that women would have to spend if the system was ‘fair’, and which they are denied. This assumes that 50% is fair. And this is the ‘cost’ of the current system to women in Zimbabwe. The postal services seem to think that 0% women and 100% men is fair. I think that this should be challenged. How about writing to the postal services and asking them to reply to this matter??
Thursday, June 3rd 2010 at 3:32 pm
It used to be a taboo to see a woman security guard but all that has changed and u see a lot of women guards nowadays. So i dont think its segregation on postal services parts, but i think and feel it is because not many girls can ride a bike. i for one cant and but been driving for more than 15 years.