It's hard to be free - Thought Leader

Democracy promised us many things and freedom was one of them. Bathed in the light of a brightly coloured rainbow, we were told that we were finally free. Somehow, some of us are still asking “Does that apply to me?”

Freedom for many people means the ability to choose the path they want, get onto that path and follow it towards their definition of success. The chances of being able to do so are heavily gendered.

We assume we understand what makes a man and a woman. We buy our kids different toys, different clothes and paint their rooms different colours. This, we assume, will mark the boundary between masculine and feminine, between a man and a woman. But these are only surface-level prescriptions, and what we truly believe to be masculine and feminine is entrenched more deeply by politics and nation building than we’d like to admit.

The saga around the gender testing of Caster Semenya rocked our foundations last year. Suddenly we weren’t sure what the boundaries for man and women were. We were forced to reconsider the nature nurture debate, but it remained a theoretical one as the protections for her dignity prevented us from knowing the results of these “gender tests”. The result would not have been able to answer the question though. Caster Semenya might not tell us whether her test revealed that she was female, or male, but she might be able to tell us what it means to be a woman, having been subject to such scrutiny herself.

Perhaps she might tell us that women in South Africa don’t have it easy. It’s hard to feel free when you must constantly evaluate your surroundings waiting for a rapist to strike. It’s hard to be free when the crime of rape is one of the only crimes where the burden of proof is on the survivor because of a problematic definition of rape that talks about consent, rather than coercive circumstances.

It’s hard to be free when women, particularly black South African women, are not empowered to be economically independent and remain slaves to a patriarchal and economically oppressive capitalist system. Women across race groups earn less than men. According to Stats SA African women’s earnings average 89% of African men’s; white women’s average 60% of white men’s; Indian women’s average 74% of Indian men’s and coloured women ‘s earnings average 82% of coloured men’s.

And even when you fall into the supposedly free tranches of society, women are required and encouraged to regulate their bodies constantly. Magazines promote ideas of bodies that are thin, but rarely strong. Women are encouraged to inhabit these weakened bodies, and spend time inside them wondering why they feel so inferior, submissive and powerless. As Susie Orbach says, even fat is a feminist issue.

Despite being encouraged to be thin, we are also told that our fertility is important. Women are able to bare children. We are also expected to play a huge role in their upbringing. When our fertility doesn’t meet these standards, it results in feelings of loss and hopelessness. But in South Africa our fertility is poorly protected. South Africa has an extremely high rate of maternal deaths, and poor access to health care services.

So when I ask, does “democratic freedom” apply to me, as a woman, I’m not being tongue in cheek. But yet I am not enslaved. I have had access to education and that has made me free — to articulate and conceive of ideas that can challenge women’s lack of freedom. It has given me the space, however small, to have a voice in South Africa.

I’m not entirely convinced that those in power are listening, but I hope that women are hearing the voices of other women and using them in their daily personal struggles to overcome the feelings of personal inadequacy that arise when you are told that you are free, but can’t live freedom.