SEDIBENG.- As is the norm every year when such a celebration, Women’s Day (as Mother’s Day), takes place I send my well wishes and today is no different.
I would like to wish all the women of South Africa a Happy Women’s Day today. I am doing this so late in the afternoon because I had some doubts about sending my well wishes to women, this year.
This is all so because of women!
I hesitated for a while today before writing this piece because I felt that many women in our communities today do not deserve (or any other) well wishes as they have resorted to putting people, in particular other women down while they strive to achieve success, this at the expense of others. They put other women down all in the name of climbing the ladder, destroying whatever comes their way.
Women everywhere have lately resorted to underhand tactics to achieve whatever they aim for.
This is true because women at the workplace have resorted to recruiting even their male colleagues to put others (in this instance, their colleagues) down, body shame them, and call them names. In churches, women have formed their own organizations that seem to drag the other way, while everyone goes the other.
Even in sports women have formed ‘cliques’ that resent those that are not their members and/or perform much better than them.
Women have, themselves, resorted to judging one another!
I have many a time witnessed women judge one another by the type of jobs they hold, the positions they occupy, the car/s they drive, and the kind of clothes they wear, damn… they even judge one another by the kind of man they are married to.
The celebrations today are about women, the emancipation of women, and the total future of this fragile species. But questions arise once in a while in one’s mind: What does one do when women, themselves, hate each other?
What does one do when women themselves have resorted to applying their PHDs (Pull Her/Him Down) wrongly?
These questions are not for me to answer, I believe, but they are for many of us to dig deep into our thoughts and wonder if women need to be celebrated when they are doing the opposite. I believe that women should be respected, but if women need to be respected, they should first respect themselves.
I believe that if they need to be trusted, they should first trust themselves. If women need to be taken seriously, they should first take themselves seriously. If they expect to be treated equally, they should then first treat each other as equals.
As we celebrate the struggles of women, and as we honour the venture that was taken by the women of 1956 who marched to the union buildings for their rights, we need to remember and always remember that in the long run, women need to stop demeaning each other.
Happy Women’s Day to all the beautiful women of South Africa, love you lots.
Lerato wa ha Serero…
