Women’s rights, opportunities: great unfinished business of 21st century
SOUTH Africa has made great strides in addressing the inequalities within our society, especially between women and men, since 1994. Before our first democratic elections, black women in particular were oppressed for their gender, race and class.
The ANC and the government have had greater determination and resolve on the issue of gender equality, with the ANC strictly ensuring that in all its structures, there is a 50% woman/man representation.
Despite the great and commendable efforts, no South African woman will disagree that advancing rights and opportunities for women is the great unfinished business of the 21st century.
At a release of the Gender Statistics in South Africa 2011 report, statistician-general Pali Lehohla summarised the status of the women in the country: “Women experience far higher unemployment, they experience a far lower participation rate (in the economy). In comparison to their male counterparts, a larger percentage of women are illiterate and fewer completed schooling.”
He also said: “The proportion of women with tertiary education who are employed is almost 10 percentage points lower than that of men with the same level of education. Furthermore, women with tertiary education earn around 82% of what their male counterparts earn. This picture has not changed much since. Gender equality, however, is a global challenge that needs a global resolve and determination.”
The night before Leymah Gbowee won the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for helping to lead the women’s protests that toppled Liberia’s Charles Taylor, she was celebrating the publication of her autobiography, Mighty Be Our Powers.
A guest asked her how empowered women could help those who experienced the horrors and mass rapes of war in other places across the world. Her response was four simple words: “More women in power.”
This could not be more true. In fact when Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook and author of Lean In, was pregnant with her first child in 2004, she stumbled on something important.
After sprinting (more like crawling) across the parking lot into a bathroom while heavily pregnant, she concluded that her company, Facebook, needed designated parking for expectant mothers at the front of each building.
The next day, she marched in to see Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin in their office. She announced that the company needed pregnancy parking, preferably sooner rather than later.
Brin looked up at her and agreed immediately, noting that he had never thought about it before.
Now get this: Page was honest enough to admit that he had never thought of a need for parking for expectant mothers at the front of each building.
Sandberg pondered, as one of Google’s most senior women, whether she had a special responsibility to think of this. But like Brin, it had never occurred to her until she fell pregnant.
Other pregnant women must have suffered in silence, Sheryl thought, not wanting to ask for special treatment.
Or maybe they lacked the confidence or seniority to demand that the problem be fixed. Having one pregnant woman at the top made the difference.
In the most clearest sense, this means without women in the highest positions of power there is no hope for women. Not because men don’t care, but because as Brin said, sometimes things of concern to women just don’t occur to men or feature among his concerns.
Ruth Mompati, the former mayor of Vryburg and an MP, was quoted by the Sunday Times on September 24, 2000 as saying: “Oppression of women is not a consequence of white domination. Don’t think it will disappear when apartheid does.”
Today, among the 195 heads of states in the world, only nine are women. Of all the people in the parliaments of the world, only 22.8% are women. In top jobs in the corporate sector, boards and senior management, only 15% to 16% are women.
The numbers have not moved since 2002 and they seem to be going in the wrong direction. Even in the non-profit world, where one would think its mostly run by women, women make up only 20% of top management.
According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), gender equality is 170 years away. A hundred and seventy years!
At least until December 2015, women could not vote in three countries (in Brunei, neither can men). They could take part in only in only restricted elections in many more. The fact that woman’s suffrage has only just been enacted across 12 countries since 1980 speaks to how new the movement really is on a social timeline.
Given the well-quoted figure that equality for women in the labour force would add $28 trillion (R351 trillion) to the global economy by 2025, we cannot wait that long.
Providing girls with just one extra year of secondary education can increase their potential income by 15% to 25%.
Already, women are the world’s most powerful consumers controlling 65% of consumer spending, with an economic impact growing year after year.
It is estimated that their incomes will increase from $13 trillion to $18 trillion by next year.
What is holding women back? Women are held back by traditional beliefs, with social norms continuing to push women into traditional roles.
Women feel like they have to “get over” the bad behaviour of men in the workplace, rather than speak up (52% of global respondents). Men feel they must change their behaviour when women walk in the room (64%).
How will we know when true gender equality is achieved in the South African workplace? It will be when there is equal pay at all levels of service delivery in the public sector, as would equal numbers of women achieving promotions at work or being employed in positions appropriate to their qualifications, skills and training.
Parity of representation in company boardrooms and among the nation’s chief executives would surely be another important indicator that 23 years into our democracy, the country is serious about treating women fairly and equally in the workplace.
Someone senior in the foreign office in Britain was heard saying that they were under pressure to appoint women as ambassadors. You can find people are perfectly capable but sometimes they lack the experience or skills that you need to have. And you are not doing the organisation or (the women) themselves favours by appointing them.
If this is true, one woman activist responded, then it would be a landmark day in the quest for women to be treated equally in the workplace. That there may be some women operating at the highest level in the British government who are not up to the job but have been appointed because of their gender ought to be a cause for some celebration.
For hundreds of years, the governments of this country and the biggest boardrooms have been awarding the best and most financially lucrative jobs to incompetent men.
How do we fix this? Firstly, research tells us that woman drop out of the workforce at some point, for various reasons. So we need to make sure we keep woman in the work force. The message other strong and activist women such as Gbowee have been saying to other women is don’t stay in the shadows. Refuse to stay in the shadow. Break out about your dreams.
Break out about your passion that you have for changing the world. Break out about how you feel about things. Never hold back. Refuse to be in the shadows as you step out into this life. Don’t be shy, no matter how crazy it seems to you. That crazy idea may just be the solution for some crazy global or local problem.
Women systematically underestimate their own abilities. They do not negotiate for themselves in the workforce. Studies show that while 57% of men entering the workplace for the first time negotiate their salaries, only 7% of woman do that.
Success and likeability are positively correlated for men, but negatively correlated for women. We need a paradigm shift on this one. Lastly, we have to make women sit at the table. Men will play a significant role in enacting this.
Yonela Diko is ANC Western Cape spokesperson