Happy Women's Day

Today is Women’s Day and the focus here in South Africa according to etv news is self-defense. Women are being trained (and rightly so) to defend themselves in a society where all forms of abuse have become commonplace. Hardly does a month pass by without at least one report of violence against women, and those are just the ones that make it to the news. A lot more go unreported. The effort to train women is laudable.

As we celebrate women I am worried that some women especially the younger generation see little or no reason to celebrate being a woman, wife and mother. They seem to associate failure, unhappiness, non-achievement etc. with being a wife and mother. They are of the opinion that becoming a wife or mother will deny them the joy of reaching the pinnacle of their chosen careers.There seems to be a trend of empowering and training females without paying enough attention to the males. Both need to be empowered.

Our girls seem to think that doing household chores or looking after babies are crimes against womanhood. The traditional roles of women are held in disdain and there are calls for dismantling the patriarchal structures in our societies. Yes, we need to question the oppressive patriarchal practices, but must we throw out the baby with the bath water?  I believe we need to strike a balance between empowering our girls and being appreciative about being women and empowering our boys to be responsible and caring men. The onus rest on us as women, mothers and wives to raise dignified proud girls appreciative of the female gender, and boys who are empowered to be men we can boost of.

Happy Women’s Day