Chairperson, hon members and fellow South Africans, there's an expression of admiration for women, especially younger ones, when they have done well ...
... ethi: Amaqobokazana angalal' endleleni yazini kunyembelekile. Nditsho kuni ke mantombazana. Nditsho kuni zimazi zakowethu, nakwabo kungekalungi kubo. Sithi akulahlwa mbeleko ngakufelwa. [Kwaqhwatywa.] (Translation of isiXhosa paragraph follows.)
[... which runs: when you see young women lying by the roadside then you should know that something is wrong. I am referring to you young ladies. I am referring to you experienced women, and even to those who are still struggling. We are saying that we cannot give up. [Applause.]]
In paying tribute to all the women of the world from south to north, from east to west, and from the squatter camps to dusty towns, shantytowns, mining towns, townships, to villages, prisons, hospitals, and streets to all the women and girls whom society cannot account for, Cope says: "Your struggle is our struggle."
Having been part of Parliament's multiparty international women's conference on Friday last week, I will refer to some of the recommendations and the declarations that were made there. I will, however, take this opportunity also to share some insights and to highlight some of the challenges still facing women and girls today.
The topic under discussion is "Equality, Equal Opportunities: Progress for All". While acknowledging the efforts made and strides taken in ensuring that there are equal opportunities for all at the global and national levels, it is not in the lack of instruments, such as the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, among others, that challenges with regard to women's equality arise. It is in the lack of commitment and will in following up and in ensuring that the dictates of such instruments are implemented.
It would also be dangerous to use a one-size-fits-all approach in appraising women's conditions throughout the world. So much is still left to be desired the world over.
Last week, in speaking to one woman with regard to the topic under discussion, I woke up to an amazing idea of the purpose for which women were created in the first place. Most historical accounts, be they of biblical or evolutionary origin, converge on the idea of creation as the beginning of life; that after life was created there was still a problem; that after creation, in all its beauty, creation was not working; that creation was not totally adequate to run alone; that man was not good alone, and therefore woman was created as the solution to creation's problem and not as a solution to man's problem. [Applause.] The solution was carrying and producing another human being, something that creation herself could never do without a woman. Up to now I have not heard of a nation of people that were conceived outside women's bodies.
So, with woman, whom we experience as daughter, sister, wife, mother, aunt, grandmother and cousin, how did we get to a place where woman has become the problem? How did we get to a place where my mother is beaten and it is okay? How did we get to a place where my daughter is not at school and it is okay? How did we get to a place where my sister is not working and it is okay? How did we get to a place where my grandmother is raped and it is okay? How did we get to this place? How did we get to a place where fathers and uncles sleep with their children and it is okay? How did we get to a place where my aunt is coming to the World Cup to be a sex worker and it is okay? How did we get to this place? [Applause.]
Is it our best way to receive this creation? Is it our best way to respond to this gift of woman? Don't we know that the dignity of nations, the dignity of treaties, the global agreements and the sovereignties of countries are etched and safeguarded in the wombs of our daughters and sisters, who will one day provide countries and future generations with leaders? So, how did we get here?
One of the most dangerous weapons for the destruction of woman is the perceptions embedded in the minds of society of what constitutes a woman; what a woman's role is; what she should look like; how many women one man can have; how much she should be paid; how she should behave; and also how a man must look and behave in order not to be mistaken for a woman.
The more dainty, delicate and soft-palmed a woman is, the more feminine she is considered to be. The extent to which a woman cannot speak loudly and make demands determines her level of finesse and femininity. In the same vein, and ironically, having displayed such femininity by wearing a short feminine skirt, this is taken as an open invitation for sex. [Applause.] So, women face a highly uneven and contradictory process regarding what they must do and what they must look like. This results in a women's always having one foot planted on either side. Her genuine desire to be a woman and the desire to meet men's expectations of who she should be and how she should look again result in her not having confidence or being in control of either side.
Such perceptions extend to the workplace. There are perceptions, again held by both men and women, that men are superior, that they have a priority claim to employment, and that women owe them labour and are accountable to them. John Chrysostom, one of the so-called Early Church Fathers, articulates these perceptions. He says, and I quote:
To woman is assigned the presidency of the household; to man, all the business of state, the marketplace, the administration ... if the more important, most beneficial concerns were turned over to the woman, she would go quite mad. ... God maintained the order of each sex by dividing the business of human life into two parts and assigned the more necessary and beneficial aspects to the man and the less important, inferior matters to the woman.
Even today, sadly, one still finds both these perceptions and these practices. There is an infrastructure boom in South Africa and yes, women are represented, but they are largely doing jobs such as cleaning the windows and doors and similar mundane jobs, and this is counted as empowerment. It cannot be. Empowerment of women must be tangible, measurable, sustainable, dignified and genderless.
While dealing with these perceptions and ironies, woman dies. While struggling with the reality of being human instead of being a myth, woman dies. Medical sources say she died of natural causes, but those who knew her know that she died from being silent when she could have been screaming. Those who knew her know that she died smiling when she could have been raging; and she died from coughing up blood from secrets she had to keep away from her husband or partner, instead of allowing herself the kind of nervous breakdown that such secrets produce. She died from loving men who did not love themselves, and could only offer her a crippled reflection. The woman died and we cannot do much about death.
It is in the silences that we find the most difficulty. It is in breaking these silences, naming ourselves as women, protecting our dignity, making ourselves present and uncovering the hidden that we begin to find the reality that resonates with us as women and that affirms us. This is a reality that allows us, as women and men, to take each other seriously, meaning to begin to take charge of our lives. Hon members, women have done it before, in the United States of America, as in South Africa. In such rural areas as the Deep South there were no men on the scene. The real struggles of the civil rights era, like the struggles in Zeerust and then Sekhukhuneland, were waged by women and then credited to men. In every one of the classic revolutions, the French, the Russian, the Mexican, the Chinese and the Cuban revolutions, the final stage of the revolutionary process was signalled by acts of mass opposition by women to ancient regimes.
Similarly, in South Africa, the most successful struggles in our history were the ones in which women played the most active roles: the Women's Anti- pass Campaign of 1910 in the Free State; the 1956 march to the Union Buildings in Pretoria; the so-called peasant revolt in Barotseland, Sekhukhuneland and Pondoland; and many other struggles, some visible, others not.
It cannot be that today we fail as women to defend, protect and create the futures of our girls so that when they look back they say, "My mother was here before." As Don Mattera says, "Yes, we were here before." Thank you. [Applause.]