This year’s elections coincide with the 60th anniversary of the historic Women’s March that took place in 1956.
The month of August is also Women’s Month and as part of this year’s Women’s Day celebrations on 9 August, South Africa will witness an extraordinary event as women from all walks of life march to the Union Buildings in commemoration of the 1956 women’s march. This historic event reminds us that our democracy is incomplete unless women are liberated from patriarchy.
The song the women on the march in 1956 sang, Wathint’Abafazi Wathint’imbokodo, honours the love that ensures the survival of millions of families and communities. One of the meanings of imbokodo is ‘grinding stone’, a reference to the work countless women do to produce food. It is sad that creating food to nourish and sustain life is not counted in the gross domestic product, the measurement of economic growth, whereas the production of weapons is.
Whilst the ANC has made incredible strides over the past 22 years in empowering women, these local government elections will see yet another affirmation of this historic mandate to empower women in local authorities. Our government has consciously developed an affirmative action policy with clear equity targets that should ensure representativity within its personnel. The Employment Equity (EE) programme serves to ensure fairness with the recruitment of employees from designated groups.
The Mogale City local municipality, which came into being following the 2000 Local Government Election needs to be restructured to be representative of our society. The city has shown significant progress in various levels of management, but continuous attempts to adhere to the Act have resulted in the municipality now being over-represented in certain designated groups.
One of the racial targets of the Mogale City local municipality was to ensure that at least 30 per cent of new recruits within middle and senior management echelons would be women. That has been achieved, but the municipality has remained under-represented within the disabled group. In trying to address the matter a decision was taken in October 2010 to increase the number of disabled employees to 22.
It is no accident that 22 years into South Africa’s democracy, an unequal and unjust spatial geography condemns many to lives of poverty, violence and inequality.
