The foundation is there, but the building is far from finished.
“If we love ourselves deeply, and deeply feel that love, and deeply live that love, we will never be defeated.” – Alice Walker
Women’s day and month is celebrated at different times around the world, but we thought we’d focus on our beautiful host country South Africa this year.
South Africa celebrates women’s month every August, and this year they’ve taken on the UN-led campaign: Generation Equity: Realising women’s rights for an equal future. The global campaign hopes to achieve equality for women by the year 2030. That’s ten years away, and considering how time is moving at the speed of light-years, that ten years will be knocking on our doors very soon. Will we have won this battle for the generation that’s coming up behind us?
Various articles have reported on the statics of the reality of women in the country currently. During this global pandemic, domestic violence has gone up. In South Africa alone, COVID has been especially difficult for the women’s economy. It’s reported that women occupy the overwhelming majority of unskilled labor jobs, they face the most job insecurity in these labor positions and they make-up the vast majority of frontline workers as nurses, social workers and other hospital staff (the Daily Maverick). With such high exposure to the disease, if they get sick, that is most likely going to greatly affect the economic stability of that household. As it stands, even women in relatively “safe” jobs are not secure. Women in South Africa are entitled to four months of maternity leave, but employers are not obliged to pay them. As the opinion writer Nonhlanhla Makhuba said: On the ground, we are far from our imagined democracy.
In talking about the issues surrounding women’s month, the Bizcommunity marketing and media platform highlighted how women are tired of being celebrated as resilient. Yes, we are strong, but that doesn’t justify a snail’s pace in progress or even the political apathy that is evident. Women want to see tangible change in how democracy is afforded to them on every level. It’s the only way we will achieve equality by 2030.
“There is no modernity…no justice without the talent,…and the steely intelligence of women.” – T Morris
But just as with racial inequality, black people cannot effect change without the collaboration of the white people who created the systems and sit in positions of power; equally, women can push for change but cannot fully realize it without the input and active conscious actions of men who currently still dominate positions of leadership across the board.
The change needs to happen even at the lower levels of our society. As one female empowerment advocate put it: The efforts put into empowering girls and women will mean nothing if boys and men are not socialized better. Our boys and men need to be held accountable even within their own circles.
We’ve spoken about these issues before, but we’ll probably keep speaking about them over and over again until we see the change that is needed.