Every year on the 9th of August, South Africans exchange a familiar phrase: “Happy Women’s Day.”
And every year, I find myself hesitating.
It is not because women should not be celebrated. We should.
There is a deep, restorative beauty in women taking time to be appreciated, to gather, and to lean into moments of care and softness.
After generations of women carrying families, communities, and whole societies on their shoulders, there is essential value in creating spaces where women can simply be.
But the 9th of August carries a weight that goes far beyond celebration.
This is not Mother’s Day, where we honour those who raised us with gifts, flowers and breakfast in bed.
It is not a day that came about so that women could be pampered, handed pink ribbons, given red flowers, or gifted spa vouchers and boxes of chocolates.
The origins of this date were forged in protest, raw courage, and a collective refusal to submit to injustice.
On 9 August 1956, approximately 20 000 women marched to the Union Buildings in Pretoria to challenge one of apartheid’s most insidious instruments: the pass laws.
They were there to defy the infamous dompas, the shameful, degrading internal passport designed to strip Black South Africans of their agency, dictating where they could walk, work, live, and sleep in the land of their ancestors.
The stakes that day were brutal.
The apartheid government had no qualms about using deadly force; the regime could easily have crushed those women where they stood.
They could have buried them in the streets of Pretoria that day, and the world would have watched in silence.
Yet, knowing the violent machine they were up against, 20 000 women walked forward anyway.
They were not just seeking recognition.
They were fighting for survival.
They came from disparate backgrounds, backgrounds that a divided society insisted should keep them apart, and yet they were united by a single, resonant truth: silence was no longer an option.
History records the icons who led them: Lilian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph, Rahima Moosa, and Sophia Williams-De Bruyn.
But the story of that day belongs equally to the thousands of ordinary, unnamed women who chose to stand alongside them.
Carrying petitions signed by thousands, they stood in the silent courtyard of a government that had nothing but contempt for their humanity. ‘
On that day, they reminded the nation that women were not merely witnesses to history; they were shaping it.
After all these years, I wonder if we are in danger of losing that truth.
The risk is not in the act of celebrating, but in allowing celebration to replace history.
My fear is that future generations will inherit the public holiday without inheriting the legacy.
They may know it as a long weekend of restaurant discounts, corporate promotions, and curated social media graphics wrapped in pink ribbons, but fail to know the names of the women who defied the dompas.
They may say “Happy Women’s Day” without understanding that the day was paid for by women who risked being buried by a brutal state for claiming basic human dignity.
Corporate boardrooms have embraced the day, and churches host lavish Women’s Day galas for their congregations.
There is nothing inherently wrong with appreciation.
But we must ask ourselves the uncomfortable question: is the history being honoured, or is it being sanitised for consumption?
The women of 1956 did not march for a spot on a promotional banner.
They marched for a different reality; one where families were not torn apart by unjust laws, and where dignity was understood as an inherent right, not a permit stamped in a dompas.
Seven decades later, that reality remains incomplete.
Today, the crisis facing South African women is gender-based violence, an epidemic that systematically robs women of the very safety and freedom the 1956 march fought to secure.
If 9 August is to mean anything beyond a gift box of chocolates or a pamper voucher, it must demand an unflinching reckoning with GBV.
This is not work for women to carry alone.
Men cannot remain spectators; they must be active participants.
It does not always require marching on the Union Buildings.
It looks like the uncomfortable conversations men choose to have with other men.
It looks like supporting the unsung organisations quietly operating shelters, helplines, and crisis centres long after the trending hashtags fade.
It looks like communities, workplaces, and families refusing to look away.
The people doing this heavy lifting every day deserve to be named and honoured alongside the icons of 1956.
In their own quiet ways, they are carrying the torch that was lit in Pretoria.
To honour them fully, we do not need to reject celebration; we simply need to ensure that celebration never becomes a substitute for remembrance, or a shield against action.
So by all means, wish the women in your life a Happy Women’s Day. Celebrate them.
Show appreciation.
But remember the women who made the day possible, and hold fast to the words that echoed through the streets of Pretoria that morning: Wathint’ abafazi, wathint’ imbokodo. You strike a woman, you strike a rock.
The 9th of August was never just about celebrating women.
It was about what women can achieve when they stand together and what all of us still owe to their sacrifice.
*The author of this opinion piece is freelance journalist Lulama Njapa. The views expresed by Lulama Njapa are not necessarily those of The Bulrushes
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