A bold proposal on Women’s Day

 By: Carl Mpangazitha Niehaus

Ours is a deeply patriarchal and misogynist society. South African society has men of all races who are patriarchal and paternalistic.

Ultimately this is the root of Gender Based Violence (GBV), whereby men feel that women are their possessions, bought and paid for, to do with them what they like.

In order to address this fundamental and extremely serious fault-line in our society it must firstly be accepted that women’s rights are not a special, or unique, category of rights, but that women’s rights are human rights. As long as women’s rights are compromised and trampled on, we simply cannot talk of a just and human rights based society.

Thus, while women must lead the struggle for the full emancipation of women, men as part of our society have a responsibility and duty to be part of that struggle to create a just society. In as much as men are the ultimate perpetrators of acts of oppression and violence against women, we have a specific duty to address and correct our misogynist conduct. This duty is personal, and simultaneously also political and systemic. No man can say that in his personal life he does not abuse women, but then simultaneously does nothing to fight the systemic oppression and exploitation of women overall in society and in the work environment. Let’s not beat about the bush: Unequal pay for equal work, and keeping women out of powerful and decision making positions, is also abuse.

The personal is political, and the political is personal!

Women have to demand that their human rights are fully recognized, and in practice implemented. In order to achieve this women must stand united on the general principle that women’s rights are human rights.

However, that does not mean that this battle for full human rights is hegemonic. Yes, the principle that women’s rights are human rights is generally correct, but the context and the struggle, and specific diverse societal locations of women, to achieve this is certainly not hegemonic.

The struggles of poor women, and women in rural communities, are not the same as the challenges of middle and upper class women, and women in urban communities/cities. The struggles of black women (specifically African) women, who in addition to gender discrimination, also have to contend with racial discrimination, are not the same as those of white women.

This recognition is critical in order to ensure practical, and solutions driven, answers for the liberation of women.

It follows that the execution of the struggle for the liberation of women should never be driven by a generalized neoliberal agenda. Issues of class and race are very real, and must always be an integral part of the liberation struggle of women.

As long as the exploitative relations of capitalism persists, women will always be the worst exploited. A direct consequence of capitalism is oppression and poverty, and for as long as capitalism persists women will always be the poorest and the most exploited.

Ownership to the means of production, and thus also access to resources, is critical for the full empowerment of women. As long as women are captured in male patriarchal power relations that make them dependent on men to access resources, and the power that comes with it, they will remain not only structurally oppressed, but that structural oppression will also translate into personal physical and psychological abuse.

To put it simply: As long as the unequal and oppressive power relations of capitalism oppresses women even more than men, and they are forced to ‘hope for a man as their plan’ for survival and advancement, women will remain oppressed, and men whether they intentionally (which is certainly more often than not the case), or unintentionally (which is the exception) want to do so, will remain their oppressors.

It is evident that any practical solution to address the oppression and exploitation of women must concentrate on economic empowerment. In order to address economic empowerment the political issue of access to real power is critical. As long as women do not have access to power they will not be able to advance decisions and pass laws that will fundamentally change the societal power relations that keep them captured and oppressed. As a consequence they will not be able to ensure Radical Economic Transformation, which must also include the full economic empowerment of women.

Women are the majority in society, but they do not have majority power. This is due to the strength of our deeply entrenched patriarchal power relations, and also because of the divisions among women.

Patriarchy thrives on dividing women through using selective and unequal access to power and related resources for a minority women, while excluding the majority. Women are allowing themselves to be co-opted by the patriarchal society for their own – mostly personal and individual advancement – at the cost of promoting the overall cause of women’s advancement and liberation.

To put it simply: There are women who sell out for the sake of their own personal (selfish) advancement. In the process they become co-agents – and even co-enforcers – of our continuing patriarchal power relations. This is a pervasive, and literally centuries old problem. It keeps on modernizing itself through the manifestations of how it happens, but the ultimate result/consequence remains the same: Patriarchy, and its unequal exploitative power relations, are perpetuated.

Only drastic measures have any hope of changing this entirely unacceptable situation. The numeral majority of women must find expression in legally enforced quotas. As a bare minimum ALL societal and government structures at ALL levels – whether elected or appointed – MUST by law have an absolute minimum of 50% women representation.

I say bare minimum, because even such a measure will still not reflect the reality that women are the majority in our society. A proper/true democratic reflection should actually mean that women ought be in the overall majority in all of these structures of society.

I do not say that such a bold and decisive measure – which we must be clear is not generosity or charity towards women, but simply justice – will inevitably and immediately change the patriarchal power dynamics as determined by the patriarchally defined unequal access to resources, because these are very deeply entrenched. However, this is is our best – if not only – chance to truly bring about the essential change in the balance of power.

As I have said, without such a decisive change in power relations – which constantly forces women to sell their bodies and souls to men for access to resources – the exploitation of women will continue unabated.

Let’s be honest, men are not going to give up power voluntarily, they will have to be forced and compelled to do so through the power of the law.

Those men who realize this – and fortunately there are an increasing number of us who do – must make common cause with women in order to legally introduce and enforce a minimum quota system that will be all pervasive throughout all our societal structures – from the lowest to the highest.

The big challenge is whether women will be focused, and unified, enough among themselves in order to achieve this.

If women are ready, I as a man, declare myself ready to join hands in order to proceed on a decisive course that has the potential to eventually bring an end to the exploitation and oppression of women based on the patriarchal control of resources.

A LUTA CONTINUA!

*Ambassador Carl Niehaus is an ANC veteran of 42 years of uninterrupted ANC membership. He is a former member of the ANC NEC, and former SA ambassador to The Netherlands. He is an NEC member and National Spokesperson of MKMVA. Ambassador Niehaus was given the Zulu warrior name of ‘Mpangazitha’ by the Executive Council of the Injeje yabeNGUNI Council in recognition of his dedication in fighting against the enemies of the people of South Africa.

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