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International Women’s Day: We need more women in top leadership to rebuild SA

Nobuntu Hlazo-Webster
By Nobuntu Hlazo-Webster
7 Mar 2023
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While more than 60% of the national government workforce is comprised of women, the most senior positions are mostly held by men. This is a consistent trend across many institutions in both the public and private sectors in South Africa.

As many South Africans lament an apparent collapse of the state, and in the wake of the announcement of a new Cabinet by President Cyril Ramaphosa, the question of the quality of leadership in South Africa has once again risen to the fore.

Events over the past few years have given credence to the thesis of a leadership crisis in both the public and private sectors in South Africa. But while this may be a reality with which South Africans must grapple, we cannot make a fair judgement on the quality of leadership in this country if women are not equitably accounted for in leadership across the board.

Furthermore, we cannot hope to recover the losses South Africa has been subjected to, and build this nation to achieve the potential it has, without more women at the helm in communities and in public and private institutions.

On 8 March, the world commemorates International Women’s Day, first observed in the early 1900s with rallies around the world, giving an amplified voice to campaigns for the rights of women to work, to pursue education, to vote and to hold public office. More than a century later, many countries in the modern world have given equal status to women.

Certainly, in South Africa, we have seen the adoption of economic empowerment legislation which provides for equal opportunity for women in the marketplace and in leadership roles; we have seen an increase in the number of young women enrolling for university degrees; the rise of a few women, against the odds, to high-ranking positions in the public and private sectors – but progressive as it is, it is not enough. 

It is not enough because the realities of women in South Africa still reflect societal and cultural inequalities along gender lines. At a recent community meeting, with 600 members in attendance, I observed that while roughly 70% of the hall was made up of women who actively participated in the deliberations, the leadership of the movement was all men, save for one woman who was the organisation’s secretary.



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While many women in the room clearly understood the dynamics and needs of the community and seemed to be the drivers of community-building activities on the ground, they did not feature as appointed leaders.

It is not enough, because while South Africa ranks high on female representation in Parliament at 48%, this is yet to translate to gender transformation in the economic sense. 

In 2022, almost half of South African women between the ages of 15 and 64 were recorded as economically inactive by Statistics SA. Poverty is higher among women in South Africa, black women in particular, because they are not only more vulnerable to unemployment, but when they do work, they are subjected to a gender pay gap across industries.

South Africa’s celebrated parliamentary gender representation has also not translated to meaningful transformation in industry. 

According to the Businesswomen’s Association of SA’s 2021 Women in Leadership Census, women constitute 23.1% of vice-chancellor roles at South Africa’s higher education institutions; 40% of directorships at state owned entities; 36.7% representation in the professional services industry and only 26.9% of directorship positions at JSE-listed entities.

While more than 60% of the national government workforce is comprised of women, the most senior positions are mostly held by men. This is a consistent trend across many institutions in both the public and private sectors in South Africa.

Quite telling is the fact that in a country where 51.1% of the population is female, of five democratically elected presidents, not one has been female. With a Parliament which has been celebrated globally for achieving gender parity, we have not seen a woman rise to the helm of our government.

When more than half of the population is not equitably represented, and when gender transformation is not enabling the rise of women to the highest echelons of institutions, organisations, communities and economies, this limits the realisation of the nation’s potential.

But most importantly, when representation is achieved, it ought to be judged by the extent to which it benefits all women, and society as a whole.

If legislation and access to education is not enough to ensure meaningful transformation and representation, what will it take?

It will take an electoral system which gives women and citizens at large the power to directly place credible women in Parliament – women whose leadership will influence meaningful transformation for all women, and progress for South Africa.

It will take a shift in the societal expectations on women. Women are less likely to take on roles as community leaders, for example, when they are single-handedly responsible for the rearing of children.

It will take commitment to gender pay parity as an economic enabler for the equitable participation of women.

Finally, it will take the courage to embrace a different brand of leadership which women bring. As the world changes, and as the systems of old collapse, the masculine brand of leadership which has dominated systems across the globe for centuries, must be balanced with the more collaborative and relational brand of female leadership – a style of leadership entrenched in ubuntu – to take South Africa forward. DM

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