This Women's Month is different to any others. The coronavirus pandemic has grotesquely underlined the truth that women remain second-class citizens in a world dominated by predatory and power-hungry men.
Around the world, government and civil society leaders are scratching the heads to re-imagine a better world on the other side of the pandemic. A world of reduced inequality. We have a duty to ensure that gender inequality is not shoved to the back of the queue.
Good South Africans are nauseated by the level of gender-based violence in our communities. Each time a girl or woman steps out of her home she's at risk. Sometimes – sickeningly often – male relatives and boyfriends constitute an even greater risk.
But the physical threat men pose against girls and women is just one of many indicators of women's second-class citizenship.
Those women fortunate to have jobs, and able to leave home and arrive at work in one piece, generally earn less than men. According to global NGO, Oxfam, women around the world earn 23% less than men.
During the pandemic, more women workers have been laid off than men. Take our women on farms, for example. They are most often seasonal workers, the first to lose jobs when demand is reduced under lockdown.
During the pandemic, one of few job sectors that is dominated by women, frontline health work, has become one of the world's most dangerous professions. Another extra risk...
The discrimination doesn't stop at home, where women do three times the unpaid work raising families that men do. And under lockdown, with schools closed, it is women who have shouldered most of the extra caring burden.
There's little escape for girls and women online, either. Author Caitlin Moran summed it up in a recent interview: "You start off positive, sharing pictures of your dog and you looking cute in a bikini. Then someone goes, 'you look fat, your dog is shit', and you put on this armour of cynicism for protection, but you can't grow in armour, you can't dance, you're in negation of the most important thing about being a human, pointing out the good things to progress by doing more of them."
From our aunties in Elsies to our gogos in Ellisras, South African women deserve a better deal. They deserve to feel safe, and to be regarded as first-class citizens.
We struggled against apartheid to get rid of discrimination. Discriminating against women is no different to discriminating against people of colour. Women and men must set this right. Now is a good place to start.
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