I'm denied a seat on the bus because of gender inequality in Ghana
Yesterday, I was affected by the gender inequality issues in Ghana. I was the first person to board a long-distance Metro Mass Transit (MMT) bus from Cape Coast to Kumasi. I sat in the front row, in a seat separated from the its brothers with plenty of legroom. This is the second time I managed to snag the best seat on the bus, and the third time I managed to sit in the front row.
I waited patiently for the bus to fill. A woman carrying a baby and a basket came and tried to sit in a vacant seat next to me. She was turned away and I assumed it was because the seat had already been taken.
I realized this was not the case when a MMT authority boarded the bus and told me directly “women are not allowed to sit in the front row”. When I asked him why, he would not explain, saying simply, “It is a new rule”.
I told him, “No”. He insisted I move.
I tried to make him realize what he had just done, “Why are women not allowed to sit in the front seat?” He insisted I move. It was the rules.
I tried to reason with him, “I’ve sat in the front row three times before and have never once been told to move.” He insisted I move. It was a new rule.
I fastened the seatbelt and told him he would have to come and physically remove me from the front row back to another seat. He threatened to remove me from the bus.
The driver came to me calmly and compassionately, and suggested that I switch places with the man diagonally behind me. I moved. Outwardly confused and inwardly infuriated I started asking people around me why women were not allowed in the front seat.
The MMT authority left the bus and the driver pulled out of Cape Coast station.
I moved to sit on top of the engine next to the driver and asked the man who had replaced me for my seat back. “No, it’s the rules”.
I opened the memo function on my mobile phone. I told the men in the first row that I was a journalist was going to write an article about this experience. A man in the second row asked me what the topic would be. “Metro Mass Transit’s new policy against women in the front row: a step backward for gender equality in Ghana?”
I asked the men if they knew why women were not allowed in the front row. The man beside me said “Women are too emotional to sit in the front seat.” The man who had replaced me said, “Women are more likely to distract the driver and cause an accident.”
I asked this man if he knew about the 3rd Millennium Development Goal, gender equality and women’s empowerment. He smirked, put on his Beats by Dre headphones and turned toward the window.
The driver beckoned me to his ear. He explained to me that recently a woman had been sitting in the front row and the driver had braked to hard. She flew into the window and died. He said this kindly and I could see his empathy. He had tried unsuccessfully to convince the authority to let me stay in the front seat if I fastened my seat belt. He said I could sit next to him on the engine for the rest of the ride if I wanted.
I sat for a few seconds and, at the advice of a friend via text message, I took out a notebook. I asked the men the first row for a pen, explaining I was going to write a statement. The eldest man in the first row held his hands up, “I’m not going to help you.” The other’s looked at me, but didn’t respond. A man in the second row handed me a blue pen. I wrote down an objective account of what happened.
The pen-giver agreed to sign it; the driver as well. Then, I moved back to my seat in the second row. (See Picture 1: View From the Second Row of the Seat I Gave Up.)
Picture 1: View From the Second Row of the Seat I Gave Up
Later, at the rest stop, the driver gave me his sincere apology and invited me to share a fufu with him. I got his contact information.
On the way to Kumasi, I saw two other metro mass busses pass, one had a woman and child sitting in the front row.
The poster behind the driver’s seat depicts people of many ethnic groups sitting on the bus. In the front seat are a man and a woman smiling. (See Picture 2: Bus Poster ).
Picture 2: Bus Poster (with woman pictured sitting in the front row and a man coming to disturb the driver)
I gazed up at the poster and considered if I’d overreacted. Are women not allowed in the front seat of taxis or of personal cars at equal risk? Are they not allowed to do so in tro tros and shuttles? Would not a man also fly into the windshield if the car braked too quickly?
If a woman wants to sit in the front seat, she should be able to choose to do so fully understanding the risk. That is the essence of equality: freedom of choice.
During that journey my mind ran a million miles a minute. I thought about Cape Coast Castle, a monument to civil rights abuse, less than 200 meters from the station. I thought about Rosa Parks sitting in the front row of her bus, told to move because she was black, not even because she was a woman.
If the scene I threw convinces any of the woman on that bus to stand up for equality in their day-to-day life, that’s enough for me. Worst case scenario, no one understood the point and I'm a privileged white person who wanted the best seat.
