Struggles of women in South Africa - personal reflections

 It is woman’s month again, just as it was last year and the year before. Again we remember and pay respect to those heroines who braved oppression and took on the Strydom administration in the name of Freedom.

We will again and again hear the same statistics and problems and challenges facing women in the same speeches year after year. When will we hear of solutions? When will we freeze quiet diplomacy and start implementing strategies aimed at redressing self-oppression of women?

Yes, we were part of the struggle for liberation of our country. We became sisters in struggle against unjust political oppression by a barbaric system imposed upon the majority by the minority.

The fact that today there is a Woman’s Month is evidence that we made a difference and that society recognizes the role that we played as daughters of the oppressed in becoming mothers of the free, the role of sisters in struggle.

The commemoration of Women’s Day is proof that if you strike a rock the earth quivers and that women are indeed Imbokodo. Wathint’ abafazi! Wathint’ imbokodo!

As much as women were actively partaking in the struggle for liberation, we also took part in another great struggle: the union movement. Here we sought the recognition of our place as women workers working with our male counterparts, and not below them. We sought equity and equality.

I started working in the chemical industry as a lab technician in a paint factory. Now you must understand that in those days women in the workplace were not as protected as we are today, but I knew the rights that I deserved as a human being, as a worker and as a woman and that is why I became chief shop steward, a leadership role in the factory, one that was an honour even for men.

Men automatically accepted me as a leader because I stood with the authority of my rights and my dignity as a woman. We had a common vision, we were part of the same cells, we were equals.

The reason women were and are treated as inferior is because we treat ourselves that way; because as mothers we treat our boys like kings of the household and our girls as their subordinates.

We teach our daughters to play with dolls and tea sets so that they become domestic goddesses and they grow up feeling that their purpose in life is to cook, clean and bear children. We buy our boys toy cars and teach them to make wire cars: that is how they learn to drive at an earlier age and want to become mechanics. We buy them model planes and they aspire to be pilots. We breed these stereotypes.

I am the third of six daughters and one son, but my mother treated us as if we were six sons and one daughter. My sisters and I had to do chores after school, but my not brother.

We had a roster that rotated duties amongst us girls on a daily basis. On one occasion I became so angry with his superior attitude that I tore down the roster and wrote his name in between each of our names. This act was of course interpreted as defiance and rebelliousness I got a hiding for being ungrateful. Should I be grateful for unfairness? Never!

I carried this attitude with me to the workplace and that was my motivation for joining the union movement and yes, they said I was defiant and unfeminine, but who said militancy is not a feminine quality? These are restrictions and labels that we continue to bestow upon ourselves.

Our children are growing up in a world with educational toys and games that are unisexual and we do not impose stereotypical perceptions upon our youth. Let the girls climb trees, don’t tell them its boyish, take her fishing as well, so she will not depend on somebody else to bring home food for her.

Teach the boys to cook and clean so they don’t treat their wives as child-bearing domestic servants - teach them compassion and independence. Treat them equally in the household so they can appreciate gender equality.

Charity begins at home, but so does politics. Our schools must stop distinguishing between sports for girls and sports for boys so that Banyana Banyana will get the same attention as their male counterparts. We must emphasise gender equity in our curriculum.

Even in leadership such stereotypes exist. When we were in Kempton Park for our Constitution negotiations, men would speak with passion and emotion; they would bang on tables and come out really strong. They were praised for it and said to be powerful men, but when I did the same I was scorned for being unfeminine and aggressive. It wasn’t the male journalists who said these things, it was the women.

Delegations to the negotiations were in what we called ‘pigeon pairs ’. That showed me that gender fronting is a reality because the leaders of delegations there were men who brought with them women comrades. I was the only exception to the norm - a female leader with males in her delegation.

The same applies to marriage; I would get so angry with women in the union. We would sit in a meeting and once we started discussing a date for the next meeting the women would say:

‘I will have to ask my husband if I can attend the meeting on that day.’

I would say to them:

‘Man, were you babies when you got married?’ because they acted like little children who have to ask their fathers for permission to make decisions.

I would like to think that I am not married to my father, which is why I am the epitome of a liberated woman within a marriage. My husband knows that I am not a waitress who has to serve him.

I taught my husband that I am not programmed to cater for him and our marriage is based on mutual respect and understanding. That is why I can go away for weeks and not come home to a beating because my husband thinks I’ve cheated on him.

I am also the mother of two children who had to share their mother with the whole nation. I wasn’t always the best mother because I was always away. But a nation had to be liberated so that those very children can have rights today that we never had, so that they can live, study and work where they please in a democratic society.

My family realised that if they waited for me to come home and cook they would grow very thin and that if they waited for me to come home and do the washing they would smell of dirty socks everyday because I am not my husband’s PA.

I was once overseas for six weeks and when I came back I noticed a note my son had left for his father on our washing machine. It read, ‘Dalla, I have washed all the clothes – all that’s left for you is the socks.’ At that time my son was only nine-years old.

My husband is my partner, I think independently and I am the champion my own destiny. Our union incurs that we have equal rights and responsibilities towards our home and that we should compliment each other and not dictate to one another.

Women must now leave the men on the home front and go out there to network. How are you going to excel in your field if you do not network? By networking I do not mean gathering for tea and chatting about our children and in-laws, I mean playing golf and discussing the stock market, current affairs and lucrative business ventures.

It is time that women take personal responsibility for their rights. Those rights are only infringed upon when we allow them to be, but when we claim responsibility for the enforcement of those rights, when we acknowledge that Government is not doing us a favour by allowing legal enforcement of our rights and accept that we are entitled to those rights, it is only then that they will cease to be spoken word and become living law and a reality of women liberated from self-oppression.

I am a daughter of a community and the spirit of Ubuntu says that my child is your child. Before we are businesspeople we are members of the community, before we are scientists, doctors, students and politicians we are members of the community. We have the right to be accepted for who and what we are; that is why we need to collectively stand against crimes of hatred against women who stand up for who they are.

We have the right to safety in our communities, but it is the mothers who bail their sons out when they have been arrested for rape and this must stop because your innocent little boy is robbing somebody else’s angel of their innocence and by bailing him out, you are condoning it.

It is mothers who accept stolen goods into their homes and hide their criminals from the police who are responsible when their boys roam the streets and don’t change their ways. This too must stop.

It is aunts who help nieces kill their newborn babies and bury them in the garden. It is neighbours who keep quiet when innocent infants cry in the sewage and in rubbish bins, yet we sing slogans opposing child abuse.

We need to report such incidents; you need to ask what happened to this one’s baby because she was pregnant in front of you. It is relatives who fold their arms and do nothing to intervene when boyfriends beat us. It is mothers who suffer in silence when uncles and stepfathers molest children just because they put food on the table.

For crying out loud, break the silence. Free yourself from self-oppression, break the silence, free yourself from the cycle, and break the silence. Speak out, break the silence!   

We can no longer blame Government because we have the opportunities to be part of governance. We cannot blame the system because we are protected by rights within the system. All we have to do is defy self-oppression and claim our liberation.

It is an insult to those of us who were involved in the struggle to live in a society where women are still the poorest of the poor, where women are the bottom of the skilled labour force and are most exploited by ‘casualisation’.

I am a daughter of the soil, a daughter of Mother Africa. It is my responsibility to ensure that she is glorified for her beauty and diversity. As women we need to play an active role in agriculture, science and technology; we have no reason not to.

We must encourage the girl child to pursue careers in these sectors if we want to see woman leading this country and I’m not talking about puppets, I am talking about leaders.

We bear children, the earth bears food: we speak the same language, if you only reap what you have sown then South African women need to start ploughing while South African soil is still fertile, the opportunities are there, but they won’t look for you, you must grab them.

Just as women united against Apartheid, we need to realise that indeed we are staring into the face of yet another enemy, another oppressor and discriminator.

Women are the most infected and affected by HIV/Aids because we allow ourselves to be treated as condoms should, use and discard. A man will only treat you the way he knows he can and only you can show him how to treat you.

This is yet another struggle and the only weapon we have is education. People can only understand what they know about and they can only defeat an enemy they understand.

HIV/Aids has only one weakness and that is choice - if you choose to remain negative you will, if you choose to live positively with the disease you will and if you choose to be compassionate towards those infected and affected by the pandemic we can overthrow HIV/Aids just as we did Apartheid.

We struggled for political and economic freedom. We were victorious as far as political freedom is concerned and as much as the powers that be are failing to lead us to economic freedom and sustainable development, political freedom is enshrined in our Constitution, in regulations, bylaws, NGO’s and in our labour laws.

It is only when we take this political freedom and use it to our own advantage that we can deliver to our country complete freedom - economic freedom. Clearly the men of Tuinhuis are failing and it is up to us to lead the way.

I need a promise from all of you here today. Promise me that the next time you invite me to talk to you I will not have to repeat my speech of today. Next year on Women’s Day I want to be able to commend women for their progress.

I became the first women to lead a party that won seats at national, provincial and local level. I always knew that I could do it and challenged all South Africans to see how they respond to a woman leader. South Africa responded very positively.

In 2009 I want to see more women coming forward. As women we should not only be followers because we can lead. Go out there and claim your rights today.

I thank you

ID President Patricia de Lille – 084 777 2065