Women’s month in South Africa is a bid to raise awareness to the struggles, sacrifices, and successes of women around the country. The disempowerment of working class women via another yet another sex scandal and the ‘corrective rape’ and brutal murder of a lesbian woman Duduzile Zozo in the recent past tells of a dismal reality. As the month draws to a close, statistics indicate that women in South Africa are increasingly finding Women’s Month celebrations hollow. If such, we could examine the current democracy method – are equality quotas, a raised awareness of inequality and the promotion of equal visibility, vis–à–vis a Western model, the only ways to be democratic?
For starters, we could examine whether female quotas within decision-making processes (macro and micro) is a form of skewed nepotism rather than the age-old reality: “Do you want to talk to the man in charge, or the woman who knows what's going on?”
For example, let us look at the efficacy of the modern day ‘solidarity march’ versus the original Women’s Day, August 9th march, which commemorates the same day in 1956 when 20,000 women marched in Pretoria to protest a new requirement that non-white women carry passbooks. It would seem the modern-day insistence that women be leaders or ‘visible participants’ at all times is not affecting formidable change. Does the goal of a 50% women quota in parliament (seen as the height of ‘inclusion’ and ‘democracy’) invert patriarchy by stopping men like Senior ANC MP John Jeffery from sexist remarks about DA parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko's weight, and fellow ANC MP Buti Manamela, from criticizing her dress?
Rural Women
Another example where female visibility or quotas aren’t necessarily affecting change is in rural areas. While women in the cities deal with the challenges of minimum wages and urbanisation (including gender-based violence, maternal health and HIV and AIDS) many rural women bear an extra brunt of customary laws. The South African constitution may provide equality between the sexes, yet customary law subverts women to male control. Is it being fought effectively? Is a constitution that promotes equality more important, or one that promotes Justice, with concerns around women’s ownership, customary inheritance, and property rights? The unsung (as usual) are those who live by example – the stoic, imitable warriors, less concerned about female quotas, more with the actual participation of indigenous women in decision-making so as to affect management of their land, and land-related resources such as water. This has to do with a female voice and feminine concerns rather than equality quotas.
Beyond Women’s Month
It bears noting [Surah Qasas 28: 5-6] the speech of Allah regarding the removal of oppression from Egypt:
“And We wished to do a favour unto to those who were weak (and oppressed) in the land, and to make them rulers and to make them the inheritors, and to establish them in the land…”
The machination used for fulfillment of this wish expressed by Allah, manifested through 3 (+1) women: the mother of Musa, Aasiyah (his adoptive mother), and his sister. Then, by the Prophet Musa’s [as] marriage to Safoora. If ever there was food for thought regarding marginalising these elemental powers, and how they played their roles in uplifting humankind from the scourge of poverty, injustice and oppression, it lies in our Holy Book, Al Qur’aan.
Further, the phenomenon of ‘saving Muslim women’ from the purported ‘inequality’ of their religion, making them insecure and apologetic about the lack of ‘sameness’ to men continues growing. One such example is belief that unsegregated sections within our masajid are a victory. Would it make equal sense if all the tortured and forcedly proselytised women under Leopold II in the Belgian Congo counted going to church with their men, singing hymns in the same pews as the men as a victory for women’s rights and justice? King Leopold II of Belgium was responsible for the deaths and mutilation of 10 million Congolese Africans during the late 1800’s. This requires careful consideration. If familiar with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs we’d be aware that the need for self-actualisation (for some women being ‘equal’ to men) wouldn’t be on the same level as women trying to restore or satisfy the needs of food, shelter and safety. Thus, by hinging success or victory in sameness, we only alienate universal womanhood who’s reality is far different from ours, who are better living the Justice of Quraanic wisdom than the highest rung on what could be a very personal or self-focused need.
Bear in mind an example of only the law fraternity wherein Columbia University Law School refused to admit women applicants as late as 1868. Elsewhere, courts declined to extend bar privileges to women using the dodge of the common law, statutes employing the pronoun “he,” woman’s proper place and God’s intentions. When Myra Bradwell challenged her exclusion from the practice of law, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Bradley, in a concurring opinion, rejected her claim of Fourteenth Amendment rights, declaring it was “the law of the Creator” that woman’s destiny should be limited to the “noble and benign offices of wife and mother.”
Who drew those destiny lines? Surely, not the Islamic Faith. Muslim women and Muslim men need a cooperative mutual understanding to remove imperialistic, capitalistic, cultural and societal baggage in redefining democracy — not as a need to be hijabless, nor the same or [equal], but rather to espouse universal Adl – Justice.
Radio Islam Programming
2013.08.26
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