Social change when it comes to gender issues can only be changed, when women themselves come to the Awakening of their selves. The idea of transformation and policy can only work when women who are in strategic positions within the political, social and economic spheres are able to talk and stand up for themselves. At the moment in South Africa there seems to be number of women in strategic position within the public and government fields, but very few of them are making tangible change in the advancement of women’s right in their constituency. We have political organization that have women’s league, who have not utilized their positions in the leagues to advance the general South African woman rights.
As a woman is involved in youth politics and activism, it worries me when still I cannot find adequate writings and books on Afrikan woman, who were part of the movements to liberate South African, woman in Afrikan stories of liberation have no names, rather there are attributed as ‘women”. Where their identity and what is are their names?
The voice of Afrikan women seems to be lost, not just to the colonial system, but also lost in the now so called Afrikan system and way of life. An impotent component to start the process of transition into a state of Awakening, that of “unlearning” everything that we have been taught is African, everything that we have been taught is woman or feminine. The definitions of gender and sexuality may need to be redefined, and women need to be at the forefront of that definition. The social norms of gender roles and identity need to be challenged and relooked at.
Policies must not just be on paper, they need to be implemented and seen to completion. Affinitive action is a system that is failing women, as it still does not given women equal opportunity as men, women are score card fillers, they still earn less than men and still are not seen as equal in the board room. This may not totally be attributed only to men, but also can be attributed to the self-confidence of women in their own skins. Woman have been made for a long time to believe they’re second hand citizens and it is even worse for Afrikan women. Afrikans have had to fight against white domination, white male domination, black male domination and white women domination. There needs to be first a process of Afrikan women regaining there power, through a mirror method, where they see women of their race as they are, heroes, writers, influencers and fighters. Afrikan woman cannot be held at ransom because of how they look and because of the skin.
So in conclusion the only way that social change can be achieved in the next decade is through unlearning what we have been taught by society about what gender roles are and the inclusion and instating our female writer and heroes into our history book. It is an unlearning and learning process.