The crippling cost of inequality
US Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has argued that “we need to make equal pay and equal opportunity for women and girls a reality, so women’s rights are human rights once and for all”. She contended that “advancing rights and opportunities for women and girls… (was)… the great unfinished business of the 21st century… too many women are still treated at best as secondclass citizens, at worst as some kind of sub-human species”.
Women comprise half of humanity; they therefore represent half of the global resource of talent, ability and potential. They are major contributors to national economies through their paid and unpaid labour, and through their biological contribution in continuing the human species.
As the UN has argued: “Empowering women fuels thriving economies, spurring productivity and growth”, but “gender inequalities remain deeply entrenched in every society”, especially in the so-called developing world, or the global South, where up to two-thirds of households are headed by women.
Women experience oppression differently, according to their race, class, colonial history and current position in the international economic order. The cost of inequality between women and men is severe and is not borne by women alone. It is borne by the whole world.
In recent years the UN has presented some sobering statistics: although 143 out of 195 countries constitutionally entrench equality between men and women, women still encounter discrimination, prejudice and exploitation through gender-based stereotypes, social norms and traditional practices. Globally, women comprise 22% of MPs, compared to 11% in 1995. Notwithstanding the 1993 UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, “one in three women still experience physical or sexual violence, mostly by an intimate partner”. Also, 133 million girls and women have experienced female genital mutilation. In 26 countries women cannot inherit property, which makes them vulnerable to poverty and food insecurity.
In many parts of Africa, Asia and the Middle-East, “family, penal, and citizenship laws… relegate women to a subordinate status compared to their male counterparts. This legal discrimination undermines women’s full personhood and equal participation in society and puts women at an increased risk for violence… Many of these laws treat women essentially as (servile) legal minors under the eternal guardianship of their male family members”.
In 2015 the UN adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for ‘Agenda 2030’. SDG 5 focuses on achieving “gender equality and empowering all women and girls”. The targets include ending: “all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere; all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation; all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation”.
Closer home, Section 9 of the South African constitution emphasises that: “Everyone is equal before the law and has the right to equal protection and benefit of the law… The state may not unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds, including race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth”.
However, there is a disjuncture between policy and practice. In 2011, statistician general Pali Lehohla summarised the status of the women in SA as follows: “Women experience far higher unemployment, they experience a far lower participation rate [in the economy]… Even in death, the registration of women who have died is much lower compared to the registration of dead men. That happens because there is nothing to inherit from a woman and a lot to inherit from a man”.
As suggested by gender theory lecturer Dr Jacqueline De Matos Ala from Wits, “culturally, the patriarchal status quo remains relatively unchanged, and unless the mindset behind gender discriminatory practices is challenged through debate, media campaigns, education, etc. Nothing much is going to change”.
South Africa is widely viewed as the rape capital of the world. Crime statistics reveal that in 2014/2015 there were 53 617 reported cases of sexual offences – an average of 147 a day. However, since many rape cases go unreported (Medical Research Council studies suggest a reporting rate of 1 in 9), the figure could be as high as 482 553).
Do women with political clout take this seriously and demonstrate solidarity with those advocating for the protection of victims of violence and empowerment of women? The Sunday Times this month reported on the silent protest by four women while President Zuma spoke at the IEC results’ wrap-up as follows: “Cabinet ministers nearly came to blows…
Furious Ministers Nomvula Mokonyane, Lindiwe Zulu and Bathabile Dlamini… confront(ed) Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula over what they saw as a serious security breach. Dlamini and Zulu had to be physically restrained by staff members from attacking Mapisa-Nqakula… Mokonyane shouted: ‘You sold us out!’”.
Barney Mthombothi referred to the silent protest as a “fitting commemoration of women’s month and a reminder of the terrible abuse still suffered by women in this country. It’s not surprising that it was female cabinet ministers who were especially outraged… Slaves are always too keen to please their masters”.
When she was president of the Women’s League in 2012, Angie Motshekga, said that there had been no consideration to nominate a woman to lead the ANC because the League was “not a feminist organisation”. But feminism is about empowering women and emancipating them from oppression and patriarchy – a major goal of the liberation struggle!
Nigerian born academic Professor Amina Mama uses the concept of “femocracy” to explain this contradiction in an African context.
According to Professor Mama, femocracy is “an antidemocratic female power structure which claims to exist for the advancement of ordinary women, but is unable to do so because it is dominated by a small clique of women whose authority derives from their… (connections with)… powerful men, rather than from any actions or ideas of their own”. Femocracies tend to exploit the feminist agenda for “greater gender equality while actually advancing the interests of a small female elite, and in the long-term undermining women’s interests by upholding the patriarchal status quo. In short, femocracy is a feminine autocracy running parallel to the patriarchal oligarchy upon which it relies for its authority, and which it supports completely”.
As SA’s skewed moral compass struggles with recalibration, and ethical leaders with integrity are like hen’s teeth, the inevitable turn is to Madiba’s prophetic wisdom: “The cause of women’s emancipation is part of our national struggle against outdated practices and prejudices. It is a struggle that demands equal effort from both men and women”.
It is reinforced by the Mahatma for good measure: “To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man’s injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed, is woman less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man’s superior”. And finally, one from Facebook: “You can always tell who the strong women are. They are the ones you see building one another up instead of tearing each other down”.
Brij Maharaj is a geography professor at UKZN. He writes in his personal capacity.