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Ivan Zhakata Arts Correspondent

The National Gallery of Zimbabwe (NGZ) is hosting an art exhibition dubbed #BreakTheBias aimed at celebrating the International Women’s Day, in partnership with the Embassy of Ireland.

The exhibition, which started on Friday last week, will be running for the whole of March.

The International Women’s Day is marked on March 8, while the month of March is now known as the women’s month.

The exhibition is part of NGZ’s permanent collection and part invitational, celebrating the achievements of women and women artists.

The exhibition shows that women have agency and more to their contribution to communities.

NGZ curator, Fadzai Muchemwa, said the showcase was in commemoration of International Women’s Day and a commitment to women’s equality, a celebration of women’s achievements, elevating and amplifying the visibility and achievements of women in the workforce.

“Women have made significant progress in workplace representation in the last few years, but the situation is still far from ideal,” she said.

“Women currently constitute roughly 47 percent of the workforce, and one in four women has lost workplace privileges because of the Covid-19 pandemic. We all need to take corrective action to #BreakTheBias — not just on this day, but every day.

“Collectively, everyone can make a difference by taking concrete action to help build a more gender-equal world. From small, influential grassroots to large-scale conferences and happenings — International Women’s Day is celebrated everywhere.”

Muchemwa said the International Women’s Day was a momentous day for encouragement and transformation.

She said employers needed to act, train, support, retain, and advance women in the workforce and everyone in the force must do the same.

“Fighting the biases women face at work is essential in ensuring safe workplaces,” she said. “Employees have the right to work in an environment free of harassment due to age, sex, race,  religion and ethnicity.

“It is illegal to discriminate in employment, discharge, promotion, referral, and other facets of work, based on colour, race, religion, sex, or national origin, but some employers and organisations find creative ways to go around this.

“Research shows that occupational bias contributes to women being overlooked for employment and advancement to higher skilled positions.”

Muchemwa said almost 60 percent of women regularly experience micro-aggressions and occupational segregation at work.

She said women with disabilities and older women faced particularly acute prejudices.

“In this regard, very few employees say they have spoken out against discriminatory behaviour at any point in their career, Any workplace that overlooks the energy and creativity women bring to the workforce is at a significant disadvantage in the modern world.”

Muchemwa said the selection was deliberate and to become more inclusive people needed to incorporate work that showed the depth and skills of women and what an inclusive workforce can benefit from changing minds about women’s work.

Globally, women were under-represented in the workforce, and the shore of women decreases with each step up the corporate hierarchy.

Muchemwa said women encountered many barriers to advancement into corporate leadership positions, and these included gender-based discrimination, as well as unconscious gender bias.

“This exhibition presents a daring aesthetic universe that grapples with the question of the image, with being seen, recognition and what engendering inclusivity means.”

“High impact and, in some cases, large scale, this exhibition celebrates resilience in the face of global challenges and elevates current issues facing women in Zimbabwe.”

The works at the exhibition express something visceral, something very human that inspires courage to do better in everyone, stand up for what matters and the title #BreakTheBias.