Every year, in August, we honour women of all races and professions who staged a protest march to the Union Buildings in Pretoria to protest against inequality and all apartheid laws of South Africa at the time in 1956 when racial segregation was the law.
The women were also protesting the introduction of Apartheid pass laws for black women in 1952. Pass laws determined where you worked, traveled and stayed. And every policeman had a right to ask for a pass from a black person and if she or he didn’t produce one at the time, they would be sent straight to jail.
It was during this time when these women sang their struggle song ‘Wathint’abafazi, Strijdom! Wathint’imbokodo’ (you strike the women, you strike a rock) – referring to then Prime Minister J.G. Strijdom whom they intended to deliver to petition to.
For decades, the song ‘Wathint’abafazi, Wathint’imbokodo’ symbolised the courage and resilience of South African women.
Well, not anymore.
Maybe the song was powerful then because the apartheid government and the men back in the day understood that striking a rock meant war.
Because then, a rock wasn’t just a weapon for them. It was a statement, a shield and a symbol of rebellion against the apartheid police. Men then understood that the rock was their” protector”.
Sadly, I can’t say the same about the current generation of men.
They seem to have taken “the rock” (imbokodo) in a literal sense of the word. Something hard, with no feelings and something that doesn’t talk back no matter what you do to or with it. Why else would they treat us the way they do?
As women, we continue to suffer at the hands of our men. Not only us, our children too. We live in a country where you’ll get assaulted for your sexual preferences as a woman. Why?
Ironically, victims of abuse wind up at the same hospitals named after some of the leaders of the 1956 march, Helen Joseph and Rahima Moosa hospitals. Which also makes you wonder, when we say “she didn’t die, she multiplied” … who and what are we referring to? The women’s struggles then and now are completely different if not worse with the passage of time. Yes, the women multiplied but so did their challenges.
Rahima Moosa was opposing the proposed laws by the apartheid government that would disenfranchise our gender. Today, women are fighting to stay alive in their own homes. Abused by the same men who are supposed to protect them.
All this suffering because we are “rocks”. When grooming the girl child, let’s not leave the boy child behind. Let them be taught from an early age that a woman is human too. She is not a rock. No woman is.
I’m a daughter, sister, mother, aunt and friend. I bruise, I cry, I hurt and I bleed. I’m a lot of things but Mbokodo is definitely not one of them.
Keneilwe Sarah Miffie is a Travel Specialist and founder of Mohato Communications.
