‘If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where you should be. Now put the foundations under them.”
What I like about these words by Henry David Thoreau is that he reminds us of the value of having dreams to work towards.
With this month being Women’s Month (a fact I’ll complain about later), it seems a good time to look at what castles we have built in the air. And our nation has certainly spelt out our dreams for gender equality.
We’ve spelt out our dreams in reams of government documents, from policy frameworks to legislation to our Constitution. We’ve collectively spent several lifetimes in workshops and seminars and conferences and summits that affirm and reaffirm the importance of uplifting women and changing male attitudes.
So, we have these castles in the name of gender equity — but how far are we in putting the foundations under them?
There are those who would argue that not only have we got the foundations in place, we’re also well on our way to finishing the first few floors towards our ‘gender dream”. They would point to all the ‘gender machinery” that’s been created — government entities such as the Commission on Gender Equality, the Office on the Status of Women, gender focal points and the parliamentary committee on the quality of life and Status of Women. We also have a president who actively promotes gender equality in government structures — such as the Cabinet, 42% of which is currently made up of women (not to mention our new female Deputy President, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka).
A summit of the Southern African Development Community’s heads of states to be held later this month in Botswana also promises to take the region from one of vague promises about gender equality to one of concrete action.
Gender activists are hoping they adopt the principle of a protocol for accelerating gender equality, which will commit the southern African states to specific targets and time frames to improving the status of women in the region.
So, yes: women’s issues are commanding the attention of decision-makers, and there are concrete structures and organisations working with our ideals of gender equality in their sights.
But for me, most of this is just more of the castle in the air. Even these tangible structures are part of the vision of a society where men and women are treated with equal respect.
My reasoning is this. Take some in-your-face, obvious realities: South Africa continues to have one of the highest levels of gender violence in the world. It results in our country being a place of fear for most women. I find it interesting that, when school transport fails, for example, the fact that the girls in particular are seen as being at risk is not because of the tiring, long walk to school they’re faced with; it’s the fact that while they’re walking they will be even more vulnerable to all those damned would-be rapists who roam around like so many rabid dogs.
Friends visit me in Johannesburg and ask if it’s safe to walk the streets at night. It’s not the cars, or the buildings, or the women they’re worried about. It’s taken for granted: it’s the men.
Equally horrifying is how the majority of women in our country live in poverty. Unlike the dramatic event of rape, for example, this is a never-ending way of life. It is the dismal fact of having so little and being burdened with so much, and having no way out of it. It’s not the exclusive lot of women — but there are certainly more women than men locked into poverty.
In my view, the crucial ingredient that is missing to take our castle in the air and give it its foundations is the willingness of men and women alike to change themselves. It needs women to be vocal, active, insistent on taking their rightful space; and it needs men to agree to support them in doing so.
Until then, the only concrete difference all this gender machinery is likely to make is to grind us down with airy words.