Bold and decisive action is now needed to address geneder inequality in South Africa
If there is anything that the coronavirus pandemic exposed during the past 17 months, it is the glaring gender inequalities facing women in SA and globally. According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), the pandemic has worsened the global gender gap and it predicts it will now take more than 135 years to reach parity.
The problem is, we do not have 135 years to fix this. We have to believe that this can be done in a generation. For this to happen, we need to take urgent concrete steps, particularly those in positions to effect change in both the private and public sector. And if we do not rapidly and deliberately include women in SA, we are choosing to underuse 51% of our labour and to live with high unemployment, high inequality and high poverty. We have unfinished business of empowering women and the girl child by fulfilling the goals of the UN’s Generation Equality campaign which demands:
- equal pay
- equal sharing of unpaid care and domestic work
- ending sexual harassment and all forms of violence against women and girls
- healthcare services which respond to their needs
- equal participation in political life and decision making in all areas of life
While “Women’s Month” has come and gone, for me, it provides time and space to reflect on the role of women in society, and whether we are making progress about the inclusive society we want in SA where gender inequality does not exist. Without a doubt, it is a different world to what our mothers and grandmothers lived in, as they were denied basic human rights, as well as access to education and employment.
Despite our good intentions and progress made to achieve gender equality in SA, we still have a long way to go before we can say we have made a dent on barriers to inclusion of women in the economy, let alone deal with social ills affecting women and girls such as all forms of genderbased violence.
Across all spheres of life, from education to corporate and politics, women are still suppressed and not given equal opportunity or they are simply overlooked or ignored. At the workplace, women are marginalised to sometimes peripheral roles despite their education and experience, while the gender pay gap is as wide as before.
For example, the latest PwC executive remuneration report shows that just 13% (81 women) among executive directors on JSE listed companies were female (including CEOs and CFOs). It further states that while diversity – particularly gender representation – has become a greater focus point, female executive directors are significantly underrepresented, especially at CEO level. Equally troublesome are statistics from the latest Labour Force Survey for the second quarter of 2021 which show that the South African labour market is more favourable to men than it is to women. The unemployment rate among men in SA is lower than among women, with unemployment among women standing at 36,8% in the second quarter of 2021 compared to 32,4% among men.
The girl child on the other hand faces challenges, among these early or forced marriages, sexual abuse and violence. Some are even denied access to education, itself a universal human right. And unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic forced more girl children, particularly in rural areas, out of school, and frighteningly, there has been a worrying increase in teen pregnancies, with reports of girls as young as 10 years falling pregnant. We therefore cannot pretend that all is well, neither can we ignore the fact that we are good at talking about the problem but seem to fail in taking action to actually doing something about it.
At the inaugural Alexander Forbes Rise as One webinar held in 2020 focusing on ways to achieve gender equality, we examined how gender-based discrimination, in all its forms, led to and perpetuated gender-based violence – the most basic means to deny women their rights to equality. We put forward and discussed initiatives and interventions required to overcome these challenges.
A year later, these challenges still exist; if anything, some have even worsened in some respects. We must begin to take practical, deliberate bolder steps to address these challenges and not simply have policies on paper without meaningful and tangible action. At corporate and board level, we need honest and uncomfortable conversations on how to accelerate gender parity and support women in the workplace.
Rather than focusing on tick-box exercises to address gender inequality, we can start by first recognising that women are equally capable as men. There is no valid reason to have a differentiated approach to both career growth and advancement, political life or any field of human endeavour.
This means we have to challenge the norm and question ourselves whether we are having the right discussions about gender inequality. Importantly, we need to include men in these conversations because the change we seek involves them. Therefore, we have to be deliberate about challenging and changing the status quo because it will not happen naturally.
Each generation is judged by the impact it had on society and the future it created for others. These words hold true for the current generation of women and men whose actions, or lack of, will shape the future of women and young girls in SA.
Just as we take courage and inspiration from women who marched to the Union Building on 9 August 1956, the current generation of women leaders in corporate, public and political life should leave a legacy of change for the younger generation coming after us. We have to believe that change will happen in this generation, and those who come after us should look to us for carrying on with this journey.
And perhaps, as the saying goes, charity begins at home. It starts with our own circles and spheres of influence, in the home, at the workplace, so that it becomes a challenge to all us to become activists and to understand why this journey is so important to us.
Concluding, we must embrace the challenge to create a better world for women and the girl child. At Alexander Forbes, we strongly believe that women’s economic empowerment and financial inclusion are key to attaining equal rights and equality for women; and will contribute to eliminating gender-based discrimination and violence.
Alexander Forbes is placed in a sector where we can play a significant part in influencing and contributing to the advancement of women's financial inclusion and autonomy. And by rising as one for equality we will create a better and more equitable world for everyone, where all have the opportunities to thrive and contribute to our collective well-being; and, because women’s financial inclusion is key, the conversations will aim to examine factors that perpetuate exclusion and identify ways to work together to change them.