#WomenCount – SA still falling short of gender parity for councillors

Despite recommendations to achieve 50/50 gender representation in local government, such as the 2008 SADC Protocol on Gender and Development - which commits member states to put measures in place to bring about 50% representation for women in decision-making positions by 2015 – and legislation such as the Municipal Structures Act that states that every party must seek to ensure that fifty percent of the candidates on the party are women and that women and men candidates are evenly distributed through the list, women continue to be underrepresented, particularly as ward councillors. Most women in municipal councils elected as Proportional Representative (PR) councillors are elected by their political parties to serve on the Municipal Council, rather than voted for by communities.

A democratic deficit?

Women’s participation in government is important to ensure that women’s issues are addressed. Postdoctoral researcher at the Dullah Omar Institute, Dr Michelle Maziwisa, wrote that “although having women elected into local government is not in itself a guarantee that the elected women will advance women’s issues, not having gender-balanced local governments, creates a democratic deficit.”

In a recent interview, Maziwisa explained that government at the local level have the authority to administer functions and make laws or bylaws – in the case of local councils – and some of those areas where local government have competencies are areas that are especially important for women, such as childcare, electricity reticulation and water and sanitation.

“The way that women experience access to those particular services is quite different to how men experience them. If you don’t have women represented on municipal councils, then some of those issues may not necessarily make it to the table for discussion.”

Ward councillor, Helen Jacobs, who was elected for a second term in Ward 56 (Kensington and Maitland), says that the implications of policies for people at grassroots level are often not taken into account because men dominate policy and decision-making positions.  

“They don’t see the real hurt and pain that people go through because it is mostly women who get affected,” she says. “For example, when the water is cut, a man will tell a woman ‘…go see that we have water’ and that is why I would like female councillors to start interacting more, so that we can get through to our male counterparts and have more input into these things. If we are part of the policy making, then we can make the necessary changes.”

Fiona Abrahams, a Proportional Representative (PR) councillor in the Western Cape, says that she has seen similar issues while serving on the finance portfolio.

“I hear the arguments and can see that the implications of policies for women are not understood. In the finance portfolio where I sit, it's just about raising revenue, with no thought of the actual consequences. So, when we implement the debt management policy, as an example, [it means] that when you don't pay your water, it is deducted from your [prepaid] electricity [purchases]. They don't have an idea that there will be an old auntie with only R50, and that when the debt is deducted, she will still sit with hardly anything. She will again be in a position where she doesn't have electricity. Those things are not taken into consideration.”

Changing minds

On female representation as ward councillors, Jacobs says that there are many prejudices about the abilities of female councillors.

“There is that stigma that if you are a woman, you are not going to do that well. To them, males do it better and women can't do it as well as [men] can, so we have to prove ourselves, which often means working much harder than men. The advantage I had was that I was brought in by a male. The community accepted me much easier because the previous [male] councillor groomed me, took me under his wing and pushed me through.”  

Abrahams, who was a ward candidate in the 2021 local government election but was unsuccessful, says she doesn’t think the community realises the importance of having women [as ward councillors].  

“What I see is that they still value the input of males over females. I see it in community meetings. Your grandmother will still listen to the male. They will take whatever males say very serious[ly], but when a female says it, it is taken very lightly. I don't know how we're going to change it but that is what I've experienced in the public meetings we've had. So, we still have a long way when it comes to mindset.”

‘Too emotional’

Jacobs and Abrahams both say that even when you do make it and become a councillor, there are still barriers to participation within government and for progression in the political space.

“Where I find difficulty is when it comes to electing positions”’ says Jacobs. “That’s where the discrimination comes in.” She says often the people who decide on these positions are all men.  “I really think that we as women need to look at this and how we can get more females into positions where we can start taking initiative into policy making.”

Abrahams says she was once told by a colleague that “…we can't trust you women to lead us, you're too emotional.” 

“We had a big argument about that,” she says. “But you can see that men still dominate. The most dominant positions, the executive positions, still belong to males, and that is why I say that women are still being discriminated against. I think that if we had women in those positions, they would think further regarding consequences [of policies] for people on the ground.”

Jacobs says she also experienced being told that women are too emotional. “But,” she says, “remember, policy-making is not necessarily emotionless. You need to have emotions because you need to understand where the people you are making the policies for comes from.” 

Speaking about the importance of 50/50 representation, Maziwisa said that the numbers do matter.

“Women are not one homogenous group, [but] are all different with different life experiences. That’s why it’s not enough to have one or two women, we need to have more women represented so that the different types of experiences of women actually make it into council and into decision-making roles, so that it could be truly representative of the people and therefore achieve more effective democracy.”

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ParlyBeat is published by the Womxn and Democracy Initiative, in collaboration with ParlyWatch but is editorially independent.