Parktown High School for Girls’ RCL president believes women should be commemorated more often
Parktown High School for Girls’ RCL president Laura Helling says more women are killed than are seen and celebrated.
Parktown High School for Girls’ representative council of learners (RCL) president Laura Helling believes that the importance of women’s month is to commemorate the women that came before.
“Commemoration of the women who battled for the tables we sit at, and of the women who have since lost their lives to the hatred that never went away. It’s also a time to recognise the women right around us, who jump hurdles every day, to keep everything going and everyone around them okay.”
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Laura added that, at the end of all of this, she thought women should gather hope… Hope that the same spirit that ran in the phenomenal women would still be alive in us.
The RCL president noted that women were not celebrated enough. “Women are the pillars of so many communities in so many ways, but because their work is often engrained in gender roles, it’s seen as expected, and simply brushed off. This is heartless. Women deserve to be seen and celebrated. Instead, they are assaulted and killed.”
The matriculant reflected on a gender-based violence and femicide initiative she was part of, which organised a silent protest in May this year, saying that, with crimes against women and children continuing to be rife, Women’s Day and month need to be observed. “Women’s Day is often boiled down to flowery quotes and pink hearts, but I think that’s wildly inaccurate. These sentiments aren’t bad, and they have their place, but the original women’s march was rooted in protest of a blood-red regime.”
Laura added that the women of 1956 came to stand for the protection of their families, and for the human dignity that everyone deserves. “The violence women face today may have changed forms, but it is still horrific and evil. It still violates those basic human rights. Now, more than ever, we should mark the strength of the women who protested it, and remind ourselves that we have power, and even if it takes long… We will overcome.”
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