As we celebrate Women’s Month this August, I considered the paradox of gender empowerment and disempowerment. These twin forces (although considered oppositional) seem to have actually converged and indicate that even with progress, there is regress.
Take, for example, the recent Stats SA study that found that despite decades of advocacy, women in South Africa remain disproportionately affected by unemployment, sectoral segregation, informal work and caregiving burdens, limiting their full participation in the economy.
Considering that this year we celebrate 30 years since the first National Women’s Day and 69 years since the women-led march aimed at abolishing “pass” laws, this is a hard pill to swallow indeed. The 2025 theme seems to be Building Resilient Economies for All, in reference to the segments of society that still do not enjoy full participation.
Appropriately, we must ask why we have failed in this endeavour.
Importantly, the answer to this cannot be viewed in a silo. It lies in the interplay of economic policy, social norms, education systems, workplace cultures and the ongoing undervaluation of women’s labour.
The implications of these barriers are sinister. It is in this breeding ground that gender-based violence is allowed to rear its ugly head quite unabated.
As Caroline Criado-Perez wrote in Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, “One of the most important things to say about the gender data gap is that it is not generally malicious, or even deliberate. Quite the opposite. It is simply the product of a way of thinking that has been around for millennia and is therefore a kind of not thinking.”
To break the paradox of simultaneous empowerment and disempowerment, we must be prepared to confront the ways in which that progress is being eroded while also celebrating our progress. I am reminded of the imagery the American poet Amanda Gorman evokes with The Hill We Climb.
And yet, the challenges that remain are substantial. It must be acknowledged that in government and institutions alike, we are seeing a distinct increase in women in leadership positions.
However, representation at the top, while vital, does not automatically dissolve the subtle biases or systemic structures that continue to shape opportunity. Women still face uneven burdens outside the workplace that have an impact on their professional advancements. Gender-based violence (GBV), in particular, remains a stark reminder that gender inequality is not only an economic issue.
We need to consider this at an institutional level. We have a duty to address this scourge head-on. True equality thus demands sustained structural change and cultural transformation. Part of our mandate is to right these societal imbalances.
Importantly, this is a shift we need to be seeing in other facets of our society. Change should address the very structures and systems that allow for inequality to persist.
Pat O’Connor and Kate White argue: “It is necessary to transform the structures and cultures of institutions and to re-imagine gender relations and the taken-for-granted ways of behaving and allocating tasks, power and resources.” They add: “It is difficult to even envisage what such a world would look like.”
Transformation is possible and, in fact, measurable. This is really encapsulated well by the notion of societal impact in practice. It is about ensuring that our work ripples outward to shape norms and shift mindsets. It is about proving that institutions across industries can be catalysts for national transformation.
This is, in every sense, a clarion call for a more equitable world. Importantly, this cannot be realised without women being central to the process of change as leaders and as equal participants. This is a hill we are already climbing together. DM