Women’s plight far more than pay

As the world marks International Women’s Day today there will, understandably, be much discussion about how, in the wealthier, industrialised nations, women are still often discriminated against, especially when it comes to employment.

This is the case, too, in South Africa, where in many professions and occupations, women earn less than men with equivalent qualifications, or experience, who are doing the same job.

In some instances, women who are better qualified and experienced than men report to them as their bosses.

That debate, sadly, gets obscured by the more emotional debate around race and whether our current system benefits one race at the expense of others.

All of those arguments, however, are trivial when it comes to the real struggles of women across the globe, which are often about mere survival.

In many countries, women are regarded as even less than second-class citizens, condemned by religion, tradition and culture to being the slaves, sex objects or punch bags of men.

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These are the women, though, who keep the real world revolving – the ones far from the offices where feminists fret about equal bonuses.

In our country, we see grandmothers having to care for hordes of youngsters because mothers have to go out to work and deadbeat fathers are absent.

We see women struggling to make ends meet while their men booze at pubs and shebeens.

These same women – and their children – are the targets of rapists and robbers in our crime-riddled streets.

And, when they report violence, either domestic or outside the home, our male cops treat them with disrespect and send them on their way.

Men, in particular, must realise that women’s rights go a lot further than just parity in pay.

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