Humanist

Yesterday, for the first time ever, I tuned in to an X-Space conversation and listened in. It was the one hosted by the Female Lawyers Network for the candidates of the presidency of the Uganda Law Society (ULS). X data shows that over 39,200 tuned in to the debate last evening, 16th September 2024, and which lasted nearly three hours.

As a woman of substance, 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 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.

The content of the debate aside, apart from the technical glitches for which the hosts had no control, like strength of internet signal, there were expertise challenges, which warrant mention.

For the calibre of that kind of debate, the hosts should have delegated the moderation to an expert communicator, a tried, tested and experienced political talk show host. They could have insisted and ring-fenced it for a female moderator to execute, but they should have selected one who is deft at handling high-level formal political debates.

A ULS presidential debate was not the domain for a news anchor or reporter to moderate. Indeed, she was overwhelmed, as expected. Being a good anchor and reporter, she was bound to reveal the hosts’ biases, however unintentional. And boy did the candidates exploit such biases to the disadvantage of the hosts. At some point, literally turning the tables onto the hosts; disempowering them; and seemingly making them lose control of their space.

I do appreciate the need for the hosts to have prepared different sets of questions for the candidates, but the execution of the questions failed the strategy. An expert political talk show host would have known to ask the questions better – modifying them to be in sync with the conversation. Particularly so, using what the candidates had prior said during the ongoing debate to pin them.

The hosts also made the rookie error of their moderator and or speakers asking the candidates to answer compound questions – multiple questions combined in one. When the candidates answered, it was not quite clear which question they were answering. In fact, it allowed candidates room to side step questions and cherry pick the ones that they wanted answered.

Some of the questions asked, moreover, were already answered by the candidates in their opening remarks. And the way the questions were asked were so uncreative that in answer, the candidates basically repeated exactly what they had said prior. Rendering the conversation, repetitive, boring and frustrating most of the time. And each time, there was no proper comeback or follow-up, if you will, from the hosts, through the moderator, in guiding the conversation.

X-Space is a tool, a medium that facilitates wide reach without necessarily being within the same geographical space. That is all it is. In order for the tool and medium to be used to great effect, the hosts need to cede and delegate the moderating to expert communicators and talk show hosts.