I was horrified to listen to the state of affairs of females in the legal profession. Female lawyers whom other girls and women look upon as among the learned elite.

Two of the presidential candidates for the Uganda Law Society (ULS) in delivering their manifestos on gender-specific issues revealed they hold a paternalistic premise against women – female lawyers are second rate as compared to male lawyers.

Naturally, logically, their manifesto proposition value add is that the presidential candidate when voted into office will become the saviour of female lawyers; proposing capacity-building and mentorship for female lawyers. This premise has me rattled.

• Is there a way in which a law degree bestowed upon a female lawyer is inferior to that bestowed upon a male lawyer?
• If the law degree is gender neutral, why is it female lawyers need gender-specific and tailored capacity building to become effective lawyers, like their male counter-parts?
• What is with all that purposeless lamentation that male owned law firms are unfriendly environments to female lawyers?
• How have female lawyers used their law degrees to fight back and change gender-based discrimination and harassment at work in male owned law firms? If not, why not?
• What really is the issue?
• If male owned law firms be female unfriendly, what is stopping female lawyers to own and establish women only owned law firms?
• What is stopping female lawyers to curve out a niche in dominating legal representation for females and on issues-based litigation that is female gender specific?

Many questions such as these emanating from the ULS presidential debate need to be interrogated and genuine answers got on why it is the case that a narrative dominates that relegates female lawyers of inferior quality compared to their male counterparts. Read more in “Review ULS Presidential Debate hosted by Female Lawyers Network.”

How then shall we in Uganda inspire inclusion when our elite women who are to champion it are themselves discriminated against?