Free on the oppressors terms, but what about religion and tradition?? Question and more questions.

Welcome to south Africa we are living in a democratic country with a lot of opportunities and policies that govern social issues from women empowerment to BEE and women empowerment being the main focus for today. I want us to focus on empowering black sisters daughters even mothers, just the empowerment of women in south Africa is work in progress with a lot of success of course we are just a step away from celebrating the success of this intervention.

Why can’t we celebrate already? Because the foundation of this intervention is anything but solid, we have a system that says religion and traditions oppress women but uphold the very same religion. We are still living in a world of monarchy and polygamist with such practice well within the scope our constitution one is tempted to ask wasn’t it supposed to be the first thing to be dealt with?? We have to stretch the scope of empowerment from within the boardrooms (normally forced by policy) to the streets to the rural Kwa-Zulu Natal and Giyane, this means we have to un-earth all the learned beliefs about what is right and what is wrong. If women can’t be married to more than one man then why is society praising the unjust act of man marrying more than one woman?

Do we have to pay the price of religious unjust with economic balance? What use does it serve to have a female CEO who is fully empowered economically but still is subjected to religious practices that have lost relevance?  Again I learned that society has adopted a short cut model of dealing with issues, before black empowerment we need to address the issue of white supremacy but that is too heavy for society so we move to the easier parts and introduce  BEE policy and pretend everything is fine when the system falls we then blame the beneficiaries and implementers, the same approach is being used to women empowerment, forget the foundation of problems women face today and take them to the boardroom give them high positions and window dress the situation. This however has a more devastating outcome because it will take years before everyone sees that this approach is not working maybe 5 to 6 generations of oppressed young men resulting with yet another social ill society(reverse sexism). Let us get the facts straight women have powerful positions in big organizations, with one of the industries being media, it is interesting to see a growing number of both local and international content demeaning women. It is puzzling to see women further the interest of a patriarchal society reducing women talent to nothing more than half naked visuals; have you ever wondered who likes to sit in front of the TV and watch a half naked women dance? MEN!!

Now someone tell me is talent gender influenced, if your answer is no then we have a deeper problem because until we see man “twerk”  for their female audience then we need a new mechanism of empowerment which is not a systematic empowerment but rather an empowerment that will render the system free from sexism. Someone will argue women choose to wear shorts and mini-skirts because they want to do it and feel sexy, what do women consider sexy? And if we claim that the definition of sexy is independent from the opposite sex input we are a leading an argument that is not worth our time. In short, true empowerment will be to free women from the claws of society because it is impossible to be anti-sexist and uphold our traditions. An empowered woman taken to be the 5^th wife of some gentleman does more damage to the mind of a young girl than an un-empowered woman fighting the injustice of the society. The point is empowerment should well be about women contend with their identity and relating to society on their own terms, the damage a mother does to daughters by being a producer of some show labeling women as man’s personal assistant or trophies goes a long way further than that of a man doing the same injustice.

Women empowerment has become a women’s platform to compete with man which in light terms is healthy and productive but under close inspection shows cracks through which we can see the resemblance of man dominated world in a women’s world. One such instance is the women’s leagues (ANCWL) who in the midst of an unfortunate incident involving women in the society raised their voice against the poor women creating what we can call victimization of women by women “self-hate in the hands of patriarchal society” someone can argue that eventually the women in question was found to be lying or misleading but when the Women’s league acted they actually showed lack of faith in their own. Women abuse remains high in the world even in my country and when cases of this nature receive such global exposure we expect women to be vocal in support of their own regardless of whether the court will find the accused guilty or not. Let us re-design empowerment to address real issues outside boardrooms, work places and school walls. Let us empower a strong wave of young women who understand the hypocrisy that society feeds them with, who will fight tooth and nail against a system that claims they can be free to work everywhere  but are not fit enough to be tribal leaders paramount chiefs and Archbishops.

Women have in them the power to stop “twerking” for money and allowing the world to dehumanize them for the satisfaction of man.
This article is dedicated to my little sister future wife and unborn daughters….

Article By Dimo wa Moraswi Sekele

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