The country’s first female deputy president had a group of women in the palm of her hand as she elaborated on Tuesday on daily tribulations facing the fairer sex, at a conference on gender issues.
There were murmurs of agreement and some giggles as Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka painted a picture of the day in the life of an average woman — one of pressure at work and at home followed by conjugal duties at night.
Most women have to get up early to send off their families for the day, occupy their place in the boardroom ”and still decide where to get Surf [washing powder] cheaper”, she said.
And when it comes to bedroom issues, men often do not understand why their partners are so tired.
”We are always multiskilling. And much of this work goes unpaid. Some of it isn’t even appreciated,” the deputy president said.
She cited United Nations statistics to the effect that women, while forming half the global population, do two-thirds of the work, including housework, and only own one-eighth of the world’s wealth.
”The arithmetic doesn’t add up,” she said. ”We’ve got to change this scenario.”
She was addressing a meeting in Pretoria of South African Women in Dialogue (Sawid), a caucus attended by politicians, government representatives, church leaders, businesswomen and non-governmental bodies.
Education, the deputy president said, is the only true area of liberation for women.
She said female leaders are obliged to use their influence to create better opportunities for all women.
”Women must remember they do not hold positions for themselves. You are there for us.”
Groupings like Sawid have to identify challenges facing women and work systematically and strategically to eradicate them.
”We need to … ensure upward mobility [of women] while halting their marginalisation,” she said. ”We must hold the building from sinking, so that when you go up the lift, it is really going up.”
This includes identifying means of improving the execution of legislation aimed at addressing gender inequality.
Laws on employment equity, child maintenance and violence against women have not yielded sufficient progress, Mlambo-Ngcuka said.
She boasted about a recent decision by the ruling African National Congress to adopt a policy of 50% female representation in the government.
”But we must talk about quality representation, not a wishy-washy 50%.”
Mlambo-Ngcuka sought to appease men that women are not seeking to replace them.
”The issue is not that we want to oppress men, we just want our fair share … in leadership, ownership and responsibility.”
This includes men sharing tasks at home.
Apologising to the few males in the audience, she urged women not to have ”the low ambition to be like a man”.
”If men have been so great, why do we have so many wars, so much poverty? We don’t want them out, but we want to bring a particular perspective to the equation. Our ambition is to do things differently.”
The country and the world cannot continue to have a history ”which is ‘his story”’, the deputy president said.
”We don’t even want ‘her story’. We want ‘our story’.”
Mlambo-Ngcuka said the process should start with how children are socialised to perceive the roles of men and women in society.
She urged South African women to go out in full force and vote in the upcoming local government elections.
”With your vote, you can determine your government,” she said. ”We must make sure that every woman in South Africa goes out to vote because the stakes are high for women. Make sure that you choose in a manner that empowers women.”
Independent Electoral Commission chairperson Brigalia Bam told the gathering that 55% of the 20,7-million South Africans who have registered for the election so far are women. — Sapa