Cancel Women's Month

I think that we should cancel women’s month because it means nothing to us. Women’s pain and oppression is of zero importance in the society we have created. We have made a mockery of women’s struggles and the continuation of this farce spits on all the female queens who have ever ruled in Africa. We are a disgrace.

 

In March this year I broke a story about a waitress who was stripped down to her soiled pad at Moja Cafe in Soweto. She was falsely accused of stealing money and further dehumanised when she was made to strip naked and even show her soiled pad to ensure she hadn’t hidden the missing money in there. When the story broke South Africans were horrified and took to social media to express their views. Never did we imagine that waitresses are stripped naked at their places of work. We got much support on social media and confronted the owner. What happened next was a series of back and forth and ensuring the victim is compensated for at least three months as the incident not only affected her physical being and spirit but also her bread and butter. Moja Cafe also agreed to some terms and conditions that would ensure that the victim, Nikki is taken care of and to give them an opportunity to fix what they had broken.

 

I have recently learnt that Moja Cafe has not done any of the things it promised. It was all lip service because the pain and damage they caused is not that serious to them. For them, it is business as usual. Nikki was invited to a sanitary pad run this August by Moja Cafe, I don’t know about Nikki but I would find that insulting and triggering of that fateful night. Nikki was also invited to go work with the same management that authorised her strip search...because nothing happened to them. It was business as usual. The supervisor who did the stripping...nothing happened to her, it was business as usual. In all of this only Nikki was made to suffer.

 

Gents, are we always going to have to go the legal route to sort you out? Here we were trying to find a way forward instead of hitting you with a lawsuit that could close your business? This has been a conflicted battle for me because I want to see black business grow but not on black women’s pain.

Moja Cafe is going on with business as usual it is only I who has to deal with a depressed woman who was violated. I had a bad day today because I don’t know how to help Nikki anymore. We live in a country where shit happens to women and there is a little bit of fake social media outrage and then it is business as usual.

 

I saw the message to the widows of Marikana sent by the president and my heart sank. Nothing ever happens to the men who destroy women’s lives...it’s just business as usual.

 

Please do us the service of cancelling women’s month? It’s pointless.

Besides all I see are women working at tills while drunken men enjoy the public holiday.