Reclaiming Women’s Month: a call for real activism

EVERY August, we are reminded of the courage of the women who marched in 1956, demanding dignity and equality. Yet almost 70 years later, Women’s Month has too often been reduced to curated luncheons, glossy events, and social media campaigns that may look inspiring, but mean little to the majority of women in South Africa.

Precisely why, as WomanPact, we have made an intentional decision to step away from this cycle. Not because we reject celebration, but because we refuse to allow performance to replace purpose.

In 2025, activism cannot be dressed up in satin and champagne. Activism must be lived. The truth is uncomfortable. Deeply so. Millions of women wake up every day to empty taps, overcrowded clinics, and empty fridges. Unemployment has reached levels that strip families of hope. Poverty is not a headline, it is the lived reality of mothers who stretch a single meal to feed a household.

In this environment, Women’s Month events that are accessible only to the elite do not just feel out of touch, they reveal how far we have drifted from the real cause. Meanwhile, gender-based violence has become a national emergency.

Just weeks ago, a four-year-old child was horrifically abused. This is not an isolated incident. It is part of a devastating trend which we are slowly accepting as normal. To reduce Women’s Month to a handful of hashtags, while this is our daily reality is to betray the very women we claim to honour. And this is where grassroots activists must begin to change the conversation.

This moment demands we honestly reflect on the public narrative. We are not here to perform solidarity for cameras or algorithms. We are here to build it: on the ground, with women, in communities that are too often ignored. Real activism is not glamorous. It is uncomfortable. It is messy. It asks us to disrupt systems designed to keep us silent, credit-locked, and divided.

We are living in what many have begun to call a new “techno-feudalism”: a system where wealth and power are concentrated in the hands of a few, while the majority are left isolated, surveilled, and struggling. Women, particularly in poor and working-class communities, carry the heaviest weight of this system. If Women’s Month is to mean anything in 2025, it must be about naming this reality and working to dismantle it.

The women of 1956 marched not for show, but for change. We owe them and ourselves the same courage today. Women’s Month should not be about looking polished, but about looking inward. It should not be about who can afford a ticket to a high tea, but about who cannot afford bread.

This August, we do not celebrate for appearances. We act for survival, and for the future. It's time that every woman must recognise in real hard terms that Women’s Month is not just a moment on the calendar, but a turning point in our collective struggle. Because women do not need more hashtags. We need water. We need safety. We need dignity. And above all, we need change.

Charlene Singh is the head of digital communications at the WomanPACT Foundation. 

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media. 

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