Women's Day: Why does such a day exist?

August 9, 1956: 20 000 women of all different races and ages participated in a national march to petition against pass laws (legislation that required African persons to carry a document on them to ‘prove’ that they were allowed to enter a ‘white area’).

August 9, 2010: To be quite honest I spent it nursing a hangover from the night before. While I was drinking millions of litres of water I watched on TV the various celebrations taking place on this wonderful day and started feeling guilty that I wasn't doing anything grand or special to celebrate our amazing gender.

Then I realised that most people don't actually spend women's day commemorating the women who marched against the draconian apartheid laws and who faced police intimidation and subsequent police brutalization and torture when imprisoned for taking part in the march. In fact they don't celebrate women in general. Apart from the government officials and women affiliated NGO's and organisations who have to do something "celebratory" or make speeches regarding women's equality etc most people generally just see it as a day off work, to relax or recover depending on what you were doing the night before. Personally I think if those government officials could choose they'd probably rather just chill at home than have to make speeches and sit through other people's speeches.

Which brings me to what was actually said in those speeches. Jacob Zuma's address in East London was disconcerting but honest. Zuma said: "While welcoming the progress made in the public sector, our analysis of various studies available indicates that if we continue at the current pace of transformation, it will take the country almost 40 years to attain 50-50 gender parity.
"Therefore, measures have to be taken to hasten the process of gender and racial transformation in our country."

Yeah like we didn't know that already. Even though gender equity is applaudable in the government sector, women in the private sector are hardly represented. The Minister for Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities Noluthando Mayende-Sibiya further stated that only 3% of women hold top management positions in the private sector. Now that's scary.

Then it hit me why there isn't a Men's Day. Men don't need a day to remind us our how unfair the social system is. The system works for them. So all in all Women's day seems to be a day used to highlight how unequal and disparate our system is because even though they are laws placed to correct gender equality e.g the Gender Equity Act I probably won't live to see an equal representation of women in all levels of society and the workplace.

Wouldn't it be nice to live in a place where there isn't a need for a women's day? Where the society is so fair that there wouldn't be a need to remind us that women are still seen as subordinates who must succumb to men's wishes and desires? That we are still underrespresented? Women's day should be everyday. And not just women's day, men's day too. In fact People's Day, everyday. Where gender discrimination doesn't exist but rather we have a mutual repsect for one another. Wouldn't it be cool if we could be judged by what lies in our hearts and not what lies in between our legs?

Just some food for thought...............