Gender disparity remains exceedingly large in the South African economy. To contest the reality that women remain at the bottom of the economic pyramid is both naïve and ignorant.
Worse still are the details of disaggregating the gender dimension according to the race ratio in the country.
Black African women are stationed at the very poorest position when it comes to business ownership compared to their white and Indian counterparts.
Whilst the B-BBEE policy has made some difference as a midwife, so to speak, to economic transformation and pathways for women to enter the economy, artificial stumbling blocks remain and the male-dominated environment continues to be a major inhibiting factor to speeding up the rate at which women ascend the corporate ladder.
In August 2020, I had the opportunity to attend the B-BBEE Commission Webinar, which accompanied the Employment Equity Commission and featured the theme "Management Control and the Status of Women in Transformation".
According to the report on the National Status and Trends on B-BBEE presented at the webinar, the scorecard recording the progress of women in the economy with regards to management control and business ownership still shows figures that are far below acceptable levels in terms of companies' commitment to inclusion and gender equality.
The majority of women still don't sit on company boards – where the big decisions are made – a statistic that is evident even where they have 50% shareholding or above.
Key to our responsibility as government is to discourage women from accepting "silent control" in companies that deem them to be shareholders but withhold them from decision-making.
We must fight against corporate patriarchy that bullies women into accepting inactive silent partner status. We must eradicate the culture within women that says they are only good enough for receiving dividends in the absence of board participation.
To illustrate this, research shows that only 10% of women in South Africa are involved in the executive decision-making process within the financial sector. This continues to be a source of concern for many women in the corporate environment.
In this context, we applaud Nissan SA, which last year announced that it intends to change the narrative by committing to a 25% increase in female executives promoted to the leadership by 2025.
This is an important step in the context of the automotive sector – a particularly male-dominated arena – and our Automotive Master Plan is very focused on transformation.
We anticipate and hope that this change of direction will inspire the industry as a whole and place it on an even steeper upward trajectory.
Government remains committed to the empowerment of women. Indeed, it is very high on the agenda. On Women's Day in 2020, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that 40% of public procurement would be reserved for women-owned businesses.
This is a huge opportunity, considering the government's buying power. Of course, it has been difficult to make any assessment since last year, as Covid-19 limitations have stalled projects across the board.
The critical question is: how do we use this opportunity to galvanise as many businesswomen as possible through government procurements?
