(Parliamentary debate: International Women’s Day)
The historical disadvantage of women in South African society has still not been redressed. It is, in fact, still a case of one step forward and two steps back – despite good intentions for promoting women’s rights.
True gender equality means equal opportunities, not equal outcomes. It entails actual empowerment through proper service delivery, good and proper healthcare services and education, as well as protection and empowerment through job creation and economic growth.
That is currently not happening in South Africa, and it has been this way for the past thirty years.
An analysis of the gender wage gap by the World Economic Forum ranked South Africa 20 out of 146 countries in 2023.
It points to a slight improvement, but the research shows that a woman in South Africa earns only R72 for every R100 earned by a man for the same work.
This undermines social and economic growth. Also, being the primary family caregiver in most cases, women often work fewer hours on average than men to take care of children and households.
An additional burden on South African women of all races, languages and cultures is having to rise above the dismal level of municipal service delivery, which often borders on being criminal. It is in this challenging environment where they have to work and care for their families.
Poor healthcare services, substandard education and gender-based violence only add to the millstones round women’s necks, and yet they manage to keep their heads above water. Imagine how much better they could do without these things dragging them down.
It would be untrue to say that South Africa is steadily moving towards gender equality if all these challenges have not been addressed.
The pursuit should be holistic and genuine in an environment where quotas are considered a slap in the face of every deserving woman.
Government failures that make the playing field even more uneven for women can no longer be artificially corrected with targets and quotas.
