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There is a reckless assumption that gender is synonymous with women, and that all gender initiatives are women-centric.

This stereotyped notion is born out of the fact that, traditionally our societies were predominantly patriarchal.

Women in general and African females in particular were marginalised and subjected to subordination to their male counterparts.

Land or a rural homestead belonged to the father of the house.

A girl child could not inherit the homestead from her parents on the pretext that she would marry and relocate to stay at her matrimonial home.

Before delving much on gender and housing, it is only imperative to demystify misconception of what gender is.

Scholars like Kabeer N (2003) defined gender as “the rules, norms, customs and practices by which biological differences between males and females are translated into socially-constructed differences between men and women and boys and girls”.

This results in the two different genders being valued differently and in their having unequal opportunities. By extension, gender inequality is constructed both through the society’s formal laws and statutes and through unwritten norms and shared understandings.

Consequently, matters of gender imbalance cropped up, and the need to redress the same equally emerged.

That is why gender machineries were activated, and strategies to promote gender balance were introduced, including gender mainstreaming.

At international level, the United Nations is guided by the Beijing Declaration and its Platform of Action (UN, 1995).

This informed the creation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG-2000-2015), especially Goal 3 to promote gender equality and empower women and the successor Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular Goal 5 to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls (Woodbridge, 2015).

At continental level, the African Union (AU) has the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa.

At regional level, SADC, guided again by the UN and the AU, has a Protocol on Gender and Development.

In Zimbabwe, the New Constitution provides for gender equality and human rights. It has also provided for the Zimbabwe Gender Commission (ZGC). There is also a specific ministry responsible for gender equality and gender mainstreaming.

Eyebrows rise when it comes to gender mainstreaming in line Ministries. Where an attempt is made to ensure that there is gender mainstreaming, Gender Focal Persons are nominated, but they have other key result areas to worry about, and they are not in positions of influence.

However, it’s not only the responsibility of specific individuals/focal persons to carry our gender mainstreaming.

Coming back to the issue of gender and housing, in the past, women were not as empowered as they are today. They could not afford to own properties in towns and cities for they were not in formal employment. Those who were “fortunate” enough, were joint-owners with their husbands, especially on basis of a marriage certificate.

Those women in employment, the majority of them were in less lucrative jobs. Building societies demanded collateral security to access mortgage financing.

Most women did not own any meaningful assets to pledge as collateral to the building societies. Consequently, women were, by default, deprived of their entitlements. The challenge exacerbated when the husband died.

The relatives of the deceased, guided by the traditional norms and values, demanded to inherit the deceased estate and the women was sent back to her patrimonial home, and she would lose the property to the husband’s siblings.

However, with proper education, awareness and protective laws, the practice is subsiding, albeit a few isolated cases or attempts.

The law of inheritance of deceased estate has positively evolved over time. Learning is a process, Zimbabwe is still learning and there is room for improvement.

Nowadays, women have been presented with equal opportunities in education, career development or even property ownership.

However, as a nation we have inadequate or incomplete data to ascertain the number of men who own or have access to decent housing as a proportion of women who own or have access to decent housing.

Without proper data, it becomes difficult to benchmark and to carry-out an effective monitoring and evaluation of how the country has fared in terms of gender mainstreaming in housing.

The current housing policy, the 2012 National Housing Policy, though it mentions the aspects of gender, is not explicit on how gender will be mainstreamed.

There is need to integrate gender specific perspectives to the content of the national housing policy and the implementation or delivery strategies.

For instance, The Implementation Guide to the National Housing Delivery Programme (2014-2018), item 8.0, explicitly states that: “There shall not be any form of gender discrimination in the entire housing delivery value chain”. But how to enforce that clause, remains a mystery.

Women’s entrepreneurship in the built environment is minimal.  We have women engineers, planners, quantity surveyors, surveyors, architects, and all related professions, the majority of whom are under the employ of someone, who maybe a male entrepreneur.

But what is worrisome is the proportion of women private land developers. There are very few women active in leading property development.

A quick look at the administrative structures of housing cooperatives, the majority of women are either secretaries or committee members, with the chairmanship being male dominated.

The quota system has been used at some point to enhance equal access to housing. For instance, the Implementation Guide states that 30 percent of all housing projects will be reserved for women headed households, provided they can afford to meet the conditions.

But are the women themselves alive to this clause? This is not affirmative action because the women are expected to raise enough deposits and meet the monthly instalments.

In conclusion, there are very few, if any, specific gender policies within the Government.

There are various and varied sector specific policies that are gender neutral and gender is subsumed because of the assumption that the policies are meant to benefit all.

They rely on the willingness of the respective departments to implement gender mainstreaming. There is no benchmarking on gender issues. Therefore, the quality of gender mainstreaming is compromised.

There are no punitive measures for failure or resisting gender mainstreaming. Departments can easily get away with murder.

There is no balanced representation of women and men at decision-making levels, so gender mainstreaming success is thus compromised in most government departments.

There is no adequate mechanism for monitoring and evaluation and accountability.

The monitoring and evaluation is done haphazardly without a proper framework for same. In the end, there is some bit of laxity and inconsistency in the monitoring and evaluation as substantiated by varied reports produced.

To worsen the matter, the some of the gender focal persons, who are expected to implement gender mainstreaming are not gender experts, and predominantly gender blind.

The critical success factors for gender mainstreaming remain as political commitment, support from decision-makers and a compatible legal and institutional framework. Without these, then gender mainstreaming, even in housing, will remain a pipe dream.