Deputy Minister Tandi Mahambehlala Women’s Month Address: Wathinta Abafazi Wathinta Imbokodo, Khayelitsha Thusong Centre
Mandithathe elithuba ndibulele iExecutive yeRadio Zibonele ngokundicinga. Kuluyolo kum ukuba lapha ukuze thina nabahlali balapha eKhayelitsha, sidibane sithethe izinto ezidla umzi walapha,eKhayelitsha. Ngalamazwi mandibulele nabahlali balapha, abathe bathatha elithuba lokuba baze apha ukuze sithethe, kwaye siphicothe sibonisane izinto ezidla umzi ngakumbi kulenyanga yabantu abangomama Ndiyathemba ukuba ngolusiku singancedisana kunye noRhulumente wethu ukuba singazixambulula kanjani iingxaki zokuhlala ngakumbi ukuxhatshazwa kwabantu abangomama, nabantwana abancinci abangamantombazana.
Ngomnyaka ka1984, uOliver Tambo, omnye wamakhalipha alwela inkululeko yethu, wafunga ukuba unyaka ka1984 ngunyaka wamakhosikazi, xa wayesenza oko wathi “In our beleaguered country the woman’s place is in the battle front of the struggle not in the kitchen”.
Singavuma ke ukuba xawayethetha lamazwi uOliver Tambo wayengabhudi, kodwa wayekumbule ukuba kakade ngeXesha laseMbo, ixesha loBawo bethu omkhulu, before the colonialist arrived in our shores …Women’s place in our society was valued by our ancestors. Women were the overseers of our society.
Historically in the African society, women used to perform 60% – 80% of the agricultural labour. History tells us that long before the ‘basic needs’ concept became fashionable in the literature of development, African women produced food, provided water and clean clothing, taught children language and healthy habits and performed certain tasks and others in their communities. In the modern society this might be described as the disproportionate division of labour, but in traditional African society this allowed African women to have access to a quality life in the broadest sense. Furthermore, this allowed African women to utilise valuable statuses and activities that constituted people’s well-being and human flourishing and that is the basic principle of human rights that all shall flourish.
However, with the arrival of colonialism, industrialisation and the dawn of the apartheid era in South Africa, African black women in South Africa were left without any source of employment and survival. Black men had to find employment in the mines and industries. Women had to find ways to complement their husbands’ migratory remittances for their families to survive. Then women were to be found working in two areas: one group in the rural ancestral regions confined by apartheid legislation (usually denied the right to be with their husbands, and worked in the rural farms), and others were found in what was called ‘black urban areas’ in the backyards of their white madams, etc. It is these women who stood up against apartheid general Strydom and protested against inhumane and restricted pass laws on the historical day, of the 9th August 1956. Where women stood up, for their families, their children, their men, their women and said no to dom passes.
Of course they had to stand up against the tyranny of apartheid, because we all know the more racist a society is, the more sexist it becomes. For instance, the apartheid racial policy that discriminated against black people brought about triple oppression for black women: they were discriminated against because of race, class and gender. The more racist South Africa was, the more sexist it became. In the rural periphery, black women lag far behind black men in accessing the benefits of development. Black women without education were forced to work on the white farms and in apartheid-directed Bantustan industries, and women who had access to education were limited to work as teachers and nurses. The other group of women were forced to depend on their husband, especially those who lived in rural areas, because a women’s place was said to be in the kitchen and to raise children at home] Through the apartheid legislation, men were placed in some superior place thereby black men became bread winners. This resulted in black women having to be subordinate to male figures to access development; and to male figures who had already been practising patriarchy, in which they believed that culturally women cannot own land.
Umzekelo amaXhosa kwisithethe sabo ayekholelwa ukuba umfazi akanako ukubanomhlaba ngaphandle kwendoda ebomini bakhe. Kude esiXhoseni kubekho intetha ethi “Ikhaya lentombi lisemzini “.
For a long time many Africans subscribed to the belief, that ‘women are their father’s daughters when unmarried, their husband’s wives when married, and are also referred to as the mother of their firstborn child after motherhood’. Thus, women are always defined in the shadows of their men hence the saying “Behind every successful man, there is a tired woman” As the women we should begin to ask ourselves why are we tired in the first place when we are equals. Likewise, our collective cultures are not different.
It is only after the dispensation of the democratic South Africa under the leadership of many women who sacrificed their lives for the liberation of our people, both our men and women that today in our country women can own land.
Of course, in the new South Africa we have not achieved as much as we thought we would. We see this in our youth calling for free education, decoloniality, we see this in our communities our people calling for better service delivery. Furthermore, we see that our society needs to develop beyond its current state by virtue of the fact that women in South Africa are killed by men that they know frequently, young girls are raped by their own brothers and neighbor’s, husbands beat their wives hence the #MenareTrash. Perhaps it is time to go back to our history and remember that it was women like Charlotte Maxeke; Ruth Mompati; Albertina Sisulu; MamGetrude Shope; Lilian Ngoyi; Ruth First; Fathima Meer and Adelaide Tambo and many others who did not make it into the history books who bore the brunt of our freedom.
Through the Ministry of Communications our government needs to heed the call of our stalwart Oliver Tambo, we need to educate our communities that women are not the property of men, they do not belong in the kitchen. To this end we must be critical of any agenda both in society and in the main stream media which reinforces certain racial and gender stereotypes. Women belong at the fore front of society’s monumental struggles. We as women, are first amongst equals. As such we must lobby now for 2019 to be declared the Year of Women both in substance and in form.
Ndizovala ngamwazi athi masingalibali ukuba lentetha ithi wathinta umfazi wathinta imbokodo ayitheti ukuba abafazi mabamkele ukuba zizigculelo zamadoda. Kodwa lentetha ithetha ukuthi wathinta umfazi wathinta imbokodo ithetha ukuthi abafazi kwakudala yayingabo abakholela inkululeko yabantu abanstundu.
Ndiyabulela bahlali baseKhayelitsha.
