South Africa's Women's Day turns 70: Equality still out of reach

Every year on August 9, South Africans sing the famous protest anthem: “You have struck a woman, you have struck a rock!” The lyrics recall the historic march exactly 70 years ago – the event that created South Africa's Women's Day.

In 1956, 20,000 women marched to the Union Buildings in Pretoria to protest the apartheid regime's extension of “pass laws” to African women. At the time, Black men already endured the humiliation of carrying passes; extending the law to women meant thousands of domestic workers would be stopped by police and subjected to arbitrary searches, stripping away the little freedom of movement they had.

The march was organized by the multiracial Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW) and the ANC Women's League, with broad participation, mostly by Black women. They rose at dawn and gathered outside the office of the Minister of Native Affairs.

It was no accident that the protest was held on a Thursday – a day also known as “Sheila's Day.” In the 1950s and 1960s, “Sheila” was the generic name white madams used for Black domestic workers instead of learning their real names. Most madams gave their staff Thursday off, so the day became known as “Sheila's Day.”

After months of preparation, on August 9, 1956, thousands of women gathered before the Union Buildings. As the delegation submitted their petition, they sang in unison their reply to Prime Minister JG Strijdom: “Strijdom, you have struck a woman, you have struck a rock!”

The march did not stop the pass laws, but its impact on South Africa's political landscape ran far deeper. It is regarded as the founding milestone of the South African women's movement and a model for later generations of activism.

When apartheid ended in 1994, many women who had led the march were still active in politics. Their movement became a powerful force in the transition to democracy, helping women secure nearly one-third of the seats in the first parliament, making South Africa one of the few countries with high female representation in politics.

The “daughters of 1956,” once in power, drove legal and policy changes on reproductive rights, customary law, marriage, and domestic workers' rights. As a result, South Africa now has some of the world's most progressive laws and policies on gender equality. More than 30 years after apartheid ended, women still hold about 45% of parliamentary seats and 44% of ministerial posts.

Yet these gains have not translated into safety for women. The country's first national study on gender-based violence found that 33.1% of women aged 18 and older have experienced physical violence in their lifetime, while one in five men surveyed admitted to committing physical or sexual violence against a partner. The persistence of violence shows the limits of formal equality: laws change faster than the attitudes, relationships, and behaviors that shape women's lives.

The gap between rights on paper and reality is also stark in economic life. Poor women in South Africa face high unemployment, gender-based violence, and poor access to healthcare and education, while middle-class women enjoy privileges once reserved for whites. The reason is that the ANC-led government over the past 30 years has done little to dismantle the economic structures that sustained apartheid. Formal equality has not delivered material equality for millions of women.

Many South African women no longer feel like celebrating Women's Day, weary of the grim statistics. But the lesson from the women's movement 70 years ago remains relevant: gender equality cannot rest on women's efforts alone. Real progress requires a response from both sides. Women have raised their voices across generations – it is time for men to answer.