SouthAfrica. WOMANKIND took a small step forward at the weekend. I’m not talking about Hillary Clinton’s confirmation that she is running for US president. We’ll celebrate with the Americans the day they actually elect a female leader. The UK may have produced Margaret Hilda Roberts, but only this year did the country’s leading universities, Oxford and Cambridge, deign to have male and female rowers share the spotlight during their annual boat race. Saturday was the first time the women’s competition took place on the same day as the men’s, on the same course and covering the same distance, thanks to pressure from a female sponsor.
SA professes to believe in women empowerment. Ignore for a moment that not only has SA never been led by a woman but the women’s movement in the ruling party has sometimes expressed self-defeating views on the matter.
In the government and legislature, women have made the most strides. But if critics have found black economic empowerment to be lacking, the situation with women is even worse.
Government policy recognises the need to advance women in the economy. But save for a few inspirational organisations such as Wiphold, women’s economic empowerment has not made many gains. Some opportunism has diminished the transformative agenda for gender equality in senior positions and in ownership. The women’s cause was used cynically by some institutions to evade racial transformation. In instances where white women are the most favoured candidates for transformation on account of race, this not only exploits women, but divides us.
In black economic empowerment ownership deals, the role of women is often tokenistic. As businesswoman Hixonia Nyasulu once said in an interview, women are brought in as “bridesmaids”, rarely as leading or equal partners.
In this country, more than most, we see how struggles against gender, class and racial discrimination are interlocked. But the original sin was committed against women. Gender is the area where humanity has practised and perfected injustice since the beginning of time. Black South African women have fought passionately against racial discrimination, poverty and inequality. It’s time for men to return the favour.
Women may run the JSE but, in terms of asset accumulation, wealth rankings are dominated by men. I find it disturbing that there are only two women in the Sunday Times Top 100 rich list. There are a few other women with undisclosed wealth who could make the list but it wouldn’t change much. Of the top 100 companies, only two had female chiefs by the end of last year.
Can this state of affairs change if we keep blaming the victim? Women don’t value power. They don’t lean in. They don’t have executive presence. And so forth, the rationalisations go.
At United Nations Women, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is trying to engage men in the fight for women’s full emancipation. This is a pragmatic reckoning with the fact that men still control the decisions that affect women’s lives. In the corporate sphere, it is they who can advocate for succession plans that involve women.
Pragmatism has also seen women being reduced to proving the “business case” for their presence in leadership. The reams of studies demonstrating the financial benefits of employing women are well-meaning but misguided. There was a time when women were thought of as inferior, so some work had to be expended to demolish the idea of a weaker sex. But to say women generate higher returns on equity, are a calming, risk-averse influence on trading floors or are better administrators is unnecessary. It also perpetuates stereotypes. Women are worthy not because they are better than or different from men. Until robots master leadership and governance, being a capable human being should be enough to get a shot at rising to the top.
Written by Trudi Makhaya.