Affirmative Action Is Overdue Justice: “Not a Handout, a Hand Up”
Affirmative Action Is Overdue Justice: “Not a Handout, a Hand Up”
Happy New Year, critical minds! I hope your 2026 is off to a flyer and your targets are already looking nervous. Wishing you Godspeed.
I’ve spent the last few weeks chewing on a paradox. We often meet people, let’s call them "progressive allies", who fly the flag of feminism until the conversation turns to policy. Specifically, the Affirmative Action Bill.
The Feminists Who Oppose Affirmative Action
I recently sat down with two colleagues, Kwami and Kojo. Both are academics, and both identify as feminists. Yet, when the "A-word" came up, the shields went up. While co-authoring an academic article on discrimination against female academics in higher education, Kwami dismissed affirmative action as "tokenism" that should be strongly discouraged. Kojo, who not only supports feminism but identifies as a feminist, rejected it outright because it's "not merit-based".
Here's what struck me: how can someone advocate for gender equity while opposing one of the most effective tools for achieving it? This disconnect reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of what affirmative action actually is and what merit really means. Affirmative action isn't a shortcut for the unqualified; it’s a corrective lens for a system that has been "merit-blind" to women’s contributions for centuries.
The Philosophical Weight: Justice as Fairness
Before we dive into the "why", let’s look at the "how". This isn't just about "helping women"; it's about the fundamental architecture of a fair society. For those unfamiliar, affirmative action isn't about arbitrary quotas or handouts.
"Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought."
John Rawls
Rawls argued that a just society is one designed to benefit the least advantaged. Similarly, Ronald Dworkin defended affirmative action not as a "handout" but as an ethical tool to achieve diversity and equity. If the starting line is 10 miles behind for one group, "merit" at the finish line is a statistical lie. At its core, affirmative action is a remedial measure that ensures historically disadvantaged groups have fair access to opportunities. It's about redressing systemic discrimination and creating institutions that embody fairness and equality, strengthening democratic societies in the process.
But my support goes beyond theory. It's grounded in lived reality.
The Invisible Labour That Shapes Everything
Women raise the next generation of the world, a monumental task that remains largely unpaid and unacknowledged. In Africa, and especially in Ghana, domestic duties, childbirth, and child-rearing fall almost entirely on women's shoulders. Yet despite these responsibilities, women are expected to contribute financially to households, raising the popular question, "What do women bring to the table?"
The stakes are even higher than you might think. Evidence shows that domestic abuse is significantly more prevalent in homes where women lack economic independence. Women without economic autonomy face 72% higher odds of abuse compared to those with financial independence. (I should note that economically independent women also suffer abuse, though the forms differ, a topic for another day.) This makes it non-negotiable: women must have access to formal employment and economic opportunity.
Affirmative action is the bridge between survival and professional thriving.
The Reality Behind "Merit"
Here's a conversation I overheard during marking sessions among my male academic colleagues, discussing how they navigate family duties alongside their work: "I just have to leave the house and come to the office to work. Their mother takes care of them." "That's their mother's job. I just have to focus on my official job." "Why is their mother there?"
This freedom allows them to deliver tasks on time, meet deadlines, mark more scripts for better remuneration, take on extra duties (popularly known as 'galamsey'), and publish more prolifically. Meanwhile, their female counterparts juggle preparing children for school, managing drop-offs and pick-ups, taking time off during school vacations, and attending to the social and emotional needs of husbands and children, all while contributing financially to household upkeep.
So when someone says affirmative action isn't "merit-based or tokenism", I have to ask: what is merit when the playing field is this uneven?
If you still think this is about "merit", let the data from Ghana’s Ministry of Finance and UNDP do the talking. Women aren't just participating in the economy; in many cases, they are the economy.
Key Statistics: The Female Economic Engine: Ghana Statistics and Sub-Saharan Africa Context
Household Leadership
30%+ of households are female-headed.
42.4% in South Africa (2024).
Agriculture/Labour
Women make up 52% of the workforce.
Women produce 70% of food crops.
Informal Sector
High participation in market trading.
Over 90% of employed women work here.
Breadwinner Status
10% of women earn more than their husbands.
Up to 80% in low-income brackets.
It’s Not a Favour; It’s a Debt Paid
The Double Burden
The implications are staggering. Due to economic necessities, divorce, widowhood, and high male unemployment rates, women carry a double burden. They participate in high agricultural labour, contribute the majority of food crops, engage in marketing and trading to generate income, often serve as primary earners, and continue to bear the majority of unpaid domestic work and childcare. To call affirmative action "tokenism" is to ignore the 86.8% of women in rural areas farming the land or the 70% of food crops produced by female hands. Humanity literally ceases to exist without the unpaid labour of women.
As feminist scholar Silvia Federici powerfully states: "Women's unpaid labour in the home has been the pillar upon which the exploitation of the waged workers, wage slavery, has been erected."
Women are raising the next world population, without which the population declines, and humanity ceases to exist. And someone wants to say no to affirmative action?
THIS ISN'T TOKENISM - IT'S JUSTICE
Affirmative action should not be up for debate. I don't expect any right-thinking individual or critical mind to view it as tokenism or unmerited. The contribution of women globally has gone unappreciated while they continue to work both inside and outside the home. The trend of double burden will only intensify due to economic necessities. This phenomenon is even worse in rural areas and informal sectors, where women are the primary income earners. Women deserve this support. It is not a handout and must not be viewed or treated as such.
A Challenge to My Fellow Feminists
"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor." Desmond Tutu
This is precisely the point. Affirmative action doesn't give anyone an unfair advantage; it creates the conditions for fair competition.
So here's my challenge: If you support gender equity and equality, and if you call yourself a feminist, then you must support affirmative action and advocate for its passage and implementation across all African countries. Do not support a status quo that harvests women’s labour while denying them a seat at the table. You cannot champion fairness while opposing the mechanisms that make fairness possible. You cannot celebrate merit while ignoring the systemic barriers that prevent half the population from demonstrating theirs. Affirmative action is not about lowering the bar. It is about removing the hurdles that were placed there by design. It is time to operationalise the Affirmative Action Bill, not as an act of charity, but as a long-overdue recognition of merit that has always been there, hidden in plain sight.
The question isn't whether affirmative action is justified; the question is how we can claim to value equality without it.
"Women are not marginal in the home, in the factory, in the hospital, or in the office. We are fundamental to the reproduction of capital and fundamental to its destruction." Selma James
I welcome your thoughts, critiques, and conversations on this. Let's engage as critical minds should, with honesty, evidence, and a genuine commitment to justice.
Source:
Affirmative Action: Is It Fair? in Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality (2000), and his essay Affirming Affirmative Action (1998)
A Theory of Justice (1971) and later Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (2001).
www.mogcsp.gov.gh/mogcsp-launches-affirmative-action-act-to-advance-gender-equality-in-ghana/