Here is to a meaningful women’s month to us all.

Beyond the rhetoric and seminars, may we have the conversations we should be having around all the challenges that make up what it means to be a woman in the 21^st century. There are too many issues to list here but I will mention a few anyway: rape, sexual objectification, glass ceilings, patriarchy, abuse, self-hatred and whatever battles we fight daily simply because we were born female.

It is ridiculous to say the least that we can’t jog in the mornings without being murdered. It is preposterous that a young girl can’t walk home after school without being raped and it is absolute ludicrous that mothers get raped in the passages of their own homes! Yet we live with these things daily. We live in constant fear for our lives. We cross the street when we see a man coming down the same way as us; we live to bring down the next woman because ‘who does she think she is?’; and we are constantly on the look-out for date-rape drugs when we go clubbing. Isn’t that silly to you? That women are taught to PREVENT being attacked instead of creating a society where it is UNACCEPTABLE to be attacked.

I pray unceasingly that the attack on the womenfolk of the world ends, but my prayers alone aren’t enough. If the men we live and co-exist with continue to hide from these conversations then we won’t get anywhere because then we are engaged in a monologue. I find it perplexing how men are so vocal about homosexuality but will share a beer with a known abuser or rapist. Do we mean so little? Do we mean so little that men find it more urgent to address the sexual lives of other people over the protection and safety of us women?

I have more questions than answers and it is my hope that this women’s month, at the various events that will be held, these issues will be discussed with honesty, openness and integrity. In our workplaces, between classes, at shopping malls, in our homes and every space where we live and interact, may we shatter taboos and all the issues that we have relegated to the dark spaces of our existence. If we as women continue to leave the responsibility of our lives to activists, social media campaigns and the police, then we are doing ourselves a great disservice

It is my hope that while we chant “Wathinth’abafazi, wathinth’imbokodo!” we will stop and also question why sithintha abafazi with such hate and contempt. Why do we as women have to be rocks to withstand the way sithinthwa ngakhona?

In the meantime, may we continue to triumph over these issues as we do everyday, and build a society that accepts and respects women. A society where we ourselves are not afraid to bring girl-children and raise them to be all they can be. It turns out, no one is coming to rescue us. We are our own saviours.

So here is to us: our own heroes.

Cheers!