09.08.2021
Good morning 🌞
This D&E Memo arrives a little later than usual to coincide with Women's Day in South Africa. We thought it fitting to take the opportunity to dig into gender inequality at large, as well as Bettr's approach to bridging our own gender gaps. We wanted to move beyond the KPIs, Google quotes, and diversity stock footage that generally do the rounds this time of year in order to provide a deeper, more nuanced and – well – better springboard for tackling gender bias.
With that, we present a fuller context for understanding the significance of Women's Day and its calls to action, as well as Bettr's own path forward towards gender parity in numbers and in culture.
📌 This topic is vast. No single letter can begin to cover its complexity in a 10-minute read. We have no linearity where social and economic inequality is concerned, but what we do have is evidence and ethics to guide where we want to be and how we could get there.
We'd love to hear your thoughts. Happy reading!
9 August 1956 – the day a multiracial group of 20,000 women marched to the Union Buildings in Pretoria under the leadership of the Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW) to protest against Apartheid laws restricting the movement and employability of women in South Africa. That day is widely recorded as a "major success" for the advancement of women's rights, and as a significant push forward for freedom for all South Africans from Apartheid rule.
As a child of the Rainbow Nation generation – our Millennial generation – children born just before South Africa's last few steps into a democracy for all – Women's Day is imprinted into my mind through famous images of the four leaders of the Women's March – Rahima Moosa, Lilian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph and Sophia Williams-De Bruyn – walking towards an audience with Prime Minister JG Strijdom to demand legal reform.
Unity in diversity, strength in numbers, discipline, grace and decorum – these are the achievements repeated year after year in news bulletins, history classrooms and Canva templates as we pat ourselves on the back for the fact that South Africa now has some of the world's most progressive laws pertaining to women. Even our senior government has almost achieved gender equality, with 47% of Cabinet being filled by women.
We have a lot to be proud of as a nation with such strong constitutional foundations and freedoms for women. This is a necessary condition for any ongoing push for gender parity – but progress in laws does not a more progressive society make.