Women take their place at top

The great bravery and strength shown by the imbokodo women has won women today their freedom and equality. Their lives are remembered on national Women’s Day.
IN the past, women were commodities of men. They were expected to be home makers and child minders, but today they have the freedom to be everything a man can be.

The late Albertina Sisulu led the march to PretoriaThe late Albertina Sisulu led the women's march to PretoriaThere are female executives and career people, and many are making their mark in business.

But these victories did not come cheap; it took brave women who stood up for what they believed in. It took the 1956 imbokodo women, who decided that enough was enough and something needed to be done – and done quickly.

These women decided to take a stance against the extension of the apartheid pass law to include women. The law required all blacks to carry passbooks with them all the time; failure to produce this document when asked by the police and government officials resulted in arrest.

The law was designed to separate the population and severely limit the movement of blacks and other non-white races.

Known as a dompas, a passbook documented the permanent residential area of the holder and if they were allowed to be in an urban area. They were only allowed to be in a whites-only area during specific hours, usually working hours. Men worked as gardeners while women worked as housemaids.

Strike a rock
Then, on 9 August 1956, thousands of women of all races marched to the Union Buildings in Pretoria to let the government know that they were not happy with the law and were not going to keep quiet any longer.

They carried placards stating their unhappiness; they danced and chanted slogans. While waiting to submit their petition, they chanted their slogan: “Wathint’ abafazi wathint’ imbokodo”, which loosely translates to “you strike a woman, you strike a rock”. It was testimony to their strength.

In all, more than 20 000 women marched on that day, led by Lilian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph, Albertina Sisulu and Sophia Williams-De Bruyn.

All these women have since died, save for Williams-De Bruyn. Born in Port Elizabeth, in Eastern Cape in 1938, Williams-De Bruyn started out as a general worker in the Van Lane textile factory before she became an executive member of the Textile Workers Union in Port Elizabeth.

She was a founding member of the South African Congress of Trade Unions, the predecessor of Cosatu. In 1955, she became a full-time organiser for the Coloured People’s Congress in Joburg.

In 1999, Williams-De Bruyn received an award from Nelson Mandela for meritorious service in the interest of the general public. In the same year, in August, she was presented with the Ida Mntwa Award Silver for exceptional service to the women of South Africa.

Sisulu
Sisulu, who passed away in June this year, was the wife of the late fellow struggle icon Walter Sisulu. She was born in 1918 in Transkei. In 2004 she was voted 57th in the SABC3’s Great South Africans.

Ngoyi joined the ANC Women’s League in 1952; she was at that stage a widow with two children and an elderly mother to support, and worked as a seamstress. A year later she was elected president of the Women’s League.

She is also the one who saw the potential influence that international support could have on the struggle against apartheid and the freedom of black women. As a result, she took an illegal trip to Lausanne, Switzerland in 1955 to participate in the World Congress of Mothers, led by the Women’s International Democratic Federation.

She was arrested in 1956, spent 71 days in solitary confinement, and was for a period of 11 years placed under bans and restrictions that often confined her to her home in Orlando, Soweto. She died in 1980.

Joseph was born in Eastbourne near Midhurst, in West Sussex, England in 1902 and graduated from King’s College London, in 1927. After working as a teacher in India for three years, she came to South Africa in 1931, where she met and married Billie Joseph. She served in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force during World War II as an information and welfare officer, and later became a social worker.

To honour her role in the struggle for freedom, the South African government has named a hospital named after her; a street in Durban and a student residence at Rhodes University in Grahamstown are also named after her. Joseph passed away in 1992.

Women’s Day
Because of the bravery of these and many other women, who showed courage and determination in the face of oppression, in 1994, 9 August was declared a public holiday to honour women and their contribution to the liberation struggle. The day is celebrated annually.

Today, women are respected, and have equally rights under the law. To make sure that these rights are not overlooked and trampled upon, in his first year in office President Jacob Zuma created the Department of Women, Children and People with Disabilities, in May 2009.

This department is headed by Lulu Xingwana. It was set up to help public-funded institutions, organs of civil society, state-owned enterprises and the private sector to achieve national and global goals for gender equality and the rights of children and persons with disabilities.

Its purpose is to drive the government’s equity, equality and empowerment agenda for historically disadvantaged communities and marginalised groups.

To celebrate Women’s Day this year, the department will host a national celebration at Peter Mokaba Stadium in Limpopo Province. The theme for this year’s event is Working Together to Enhance Women’s Opportunities for Economic Empowerment.