Time to reject misogyny in political discourse

As we commemorate Women’s Month this August, there still remain some misunderstandings amongst many South Africans about just what the significance of this month and the day that accompanies it really are. One often hears people wishing all the women in their lives a “Happy Women’s Day”, as though it were similar to Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. Well-worn platitudes about women’s role in society are casually bandied about: “Behind every great man, there is an even greater woman”.

In amongst this confusion, the commemoration of the women of 1956, who marched on the Union Buildings to protest against the extension of pass laws to women, is lost. We forget to pay adequate tribute to the efforts and the courage of women such as Lilian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph and Albertina Sisulu, because of whom we are able to live in a society today in which women are free to access the opportunities which were so long denied them.

I myself am mindful during a month such as this, of the trail-blazing women parliamentarians who laid the foundations for young women like me to participate in representative politics in South Africa. Women such as Helen Suzman, whose vigorous opposition to apartheid as the lone liberal voice in Parliament for 13 years was one of the foundation stones of the party I represent today.

For the vast majority of women in this country today, challenges such as the scourge of sexual and family violence are their reality. Women still lack satisfactory access to the jobs and economic opportunity that flow from having equal access to education, skills development and training; they remain more at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS than men – particularly as a consequence of being denied rights over their own bodies in a deeply patriarchal society; and in rural South Africa, many women remain at a huge disadvantage compared to their urban counterparts as a consequence of customary systems and laws that deny them access to the rights enshrined in the Constitution.
In my view, this is the real challenge that lies before women in leadership positions in South Africa today. Not only must we be at the forefront of the battle to ensure that more opportunities are made available to more women, but we should also be leading the campaign to see South African men fight as hard to defend and protect women’s rights as we do.

*Taken from Press Statement by DA National Spokesperson Lindiwe Mazibuko