Women-led conversations and discussing issues affecting women

By Nomali Cele

8 March marks International Women’s Day. This is a day that, unlike our own watered-down National Women’s Day, which has become more about selling pink products than creating tangible change for women, creates platforms for pressing conversation about women, women’s concerns and women are treated in society.

2017 was a difficult year for women in South Africa. While nothing new happened (women have been suffering for all of time), there was no avoiding the truth of how women are treated under the system of patriarchy. Even though the public focus was fleeting, there was no missing it. And, as a woman, I felt overwhelmed by how much more public our fear and grief had become. Language and stories that are usually left to whisper networks and the 2 AM Twitter threads were now happening daily in very public ways. On a loop, girls were disappearing and being found dead and disappearing.

international women's day podcasts They don’t make them like they used to by artist Mary Sibande

As a culture, we were publicly confronted by how patriarchy harms women but I’m still unsure if the spotlight on intimate femicide has helped women in any way. The conversation is still ongoing. In November, Kaya 959 hosted a conversation led by feminists, Pumla Dineo Gqola and Lebogang Ramafoko and the room was hopeful and affirming. Women are already doing the work — have been for years — towards our liberation. What is the rest of society doing?

To celebrate International Women’s Day, we share past conversations that we about women’s current status in the world. Below you will find varied conversations that include mental health, pleasure, domestic work environments, women artists at work, balance an more.

Women in the world

On the hardships facing domestic workers in their hostile work environments

Portia Kobue, the Soweto Women’s Forum’s Zukiswa White and the Soul City Institute’s Matokgo Makutoane discussed violence against women

#RememberKwezi

On Influential Fridays, Dr Sindi van Zyl talks personal finance

In 2017, the ACDP’s Cheryllyn Dudley put a motion to parliament that would alter women’s abortion health rights by changing the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Amendment Bill. Should the proposed amendments to the 21-year-old bill pass, more obstacles will be in the way of women trying to access abortion care. Dr Tlaleng and other activists have rallied against the proposal.

Activist Bev Ditsie joins John Perlman to talk stock post-16 Days of Activism. “Campaigns are a good way to look like we’re doing something.” – Bev Ditsie

On Influential Fridays, Businesswoman Lynette Ntuli speaks balance versus integration for women

How are our girls treated in the world? In 2016, black students at Pretoria High School for Girls protested again racism in their school — everything from the hair on the girls’ head was a source of bad treatment.