Philippa Garson
Thirty percent of all our parliamentarians are women, which puts South Africa at number eight in the world in terms of gender equality in government. The country leapt quickly from a position of 141 in the world before the 1994 elections to number eight, when the African National Congress adopted a 30% quota on its party list.
The country can also boast that nine of its 27 Cabinet ministers and eight of its 14 deputy ministers are women. Both the Speaker of the National Assembly and the Chairman of the National Council of Provinces are women, Frene Ginwala and Naledi Pandor respectively.
According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the international association of parliaments of sovereign states, as of June 2002, Ginwala and Pandor were two of only 25 women around the world to preside over a house of the 1 809 parliaments. South Africa is one of only three African countries to have woman presiding officers in Parliament or a house of parliament.
Sheila Meintjes, a commissioner with the Commission on Gender Equality, a statutory organisation set up to advance women’s rights in South Africa, believes 30% is the critical mass needed to make a difference in the struggle to promote women’s rights. “This has been very important in promoting a range of policies and legislation that stands to benefit women.”
But an international campaign is under way to increase women’s representation in parliaments to 50%. With the slogan 50/50 by 2005: Get the Balance Right!, the campaign has far to go to achieve its aims. By 2000, women comprised only 13% of national parliaments around the world, with a yearly increase of 0.5%.
“It’s only when there is a critical mass of women in all their diversity in every country of the world, in both appointed and elected decision-making positions and in all international bodies, that gender issues will be addressed in the policy agenda and the goals of equality, development, peace and human rights for all can be realised in the 21st century”, says WomensNet, an online venture to advance women’s rights around the globe.
The campaign, launched in South Africa in March 2002 by the Gender Advocacy Project, has the full support of the Commission on Gender Equality and many politicians.
Considering that 52% of the population is made up of women and that there are 1.2 million more women on the voters’ role than men, the 50/50 goal makes sense. “It’s clear that women are actually very interested in politics. They want to participate”, says Meintjes.
She points out that not all women in Parliament are “actively taking up women’s issues as well as engaging in the rough and tumble of Parliamentary politics”. While those who are not active feminists are still keen to advance women in society, they are over-extended and are doing “double duty”, given that women are supposed to be represented on every parliamentary committee.
Legislation and
reality
The Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Quality of Life and Status of Women has seen through several important pieces of legislation on customary law, domestic violence and child maintenance, all of which have a direct bearing on the quality of women’s lives.
“We have good legislation and good policies, but we need enough funding to ensure proper implementation. This is where we fall down”, says Meintjes.
For example, the legislation protecting women against domestic violence puts much of the onus on an already overstretched police force, which does not have the resources to transform the law into reality.
Adds Beatrice Ngobo, acting chairperson of the Commission on Gender Equality: “We have women in Parliament and we have good laws to protect women, but they have not been properly publicised. When it comes to implementation, people at the frontline are mostly men. They won’t give up power so easily.”
While women have taken up key positions in Cabinet and Parliament, in government generally, women still hold “marginal positions”, says Ngobo. The challenge is to get women’s representation in local and provincial government up to 30% as well.
Private sector still dominated by men
In the private sector, women’s representation is even worse. A report released by the Employment Equity Commission in 2001 showed that women are inadequately represented across all sectors of the economy: at management level, 87% of all top management positions are still held by men and 80% of all senior management jobs are in the hands of men.
Women currently hold 37.6% of jobs in management (all levels) and professional jobs combined – which includes the teaching and nursing professions.
There are still many barriers preventing women from getting ahead in business. Besides lacking the necessary education and skills, they are often denied financial assistance without a male gaurantor.
While the political battle for gender equity has partly been won, the social and economic battles are clearly far from over. Levels of violence against women are alarmingly high. Women are extremely vulnerable to rape, sexual abuse, domestic and other violence, teenage parenthood, a lack of education opportunities, unemployment and sexual harrassment.
Commission on Gender Equality
To change a patriarchal, chauvinistic society into one which sees women as equal players will be a long, arduous process.
It is up to the Commission on Gender Equality to monitor all sectors of society to ensure that they are promoting gender equity. The Commission must also investigate complaints on gender-related issues, as well as conduct research on all existing and impending legislation from a gender perspective.
Already, the Commission is swamped with far more complaints than it is able to attend to. With only five regional offices and 36 staff members, the organisation lacks the capacity to fulfil its mandate.
However, it has entered into a range of partnerships with relevant organisations, like People Opposed to Women Abuse, to broaden its impact. The Commission is now publishing an annual report card on progress on gender equality in both the state and civil society.
But the most important partner in the struggle for women’s rights is men. “There’s a realisation that if we don’t bring men in as partners we won’t win the battle”, says Meintjes.
Philippa Garson has written for over a decade, on a range of issues, for some of the country’s leading newspapers. The former editor of The Teacher, the national newspaper of the education profession, she was named South Africa's Education Journalist of the Year in 1996.
