Women’s Month – which takes place in August every year, if you hadn’t heard – is a quandary.
It’s like one of those lame university society parties, with jocks on the one side and dorks on the other, the former there because they heard there’d be free booze and the latter because it’s the only party they were invited to, which was a bad idea from the start, poorly executed, regretted by all who attended and then repeated the following year.
Why it goes on, no-one really knows.
On the one hand, Women’s Month is an indictment of modern consumer culture, kind of like Mother’s Day mashed up with Valentine’s Day – there’ll be a rubbish movie starring Julia Roberts soon – and then drawn out over a full month with massage specials and dinner deals and everything in pink.
Because obviously pink and women are the same thing.
But Women’s Month is also supposed to be a considered reflection on women’s rights; on workplace inequality, domestic violence and sexual abuse, among other things.
Problem is if you jam those complex and momentous topics into a couple of workshops in August, in among the exhortations to switch your car insurer and treat yourself to a mani-pedi special and a glass of bubbles, then what happens the rest of the year?
I know women and logic don’t always go together, but logic suggests they should be celebrated six months of the year, at least.
Twelve would be better.
About the book:
It’s been seven years since we last heard from the Is It Just Me Or Is Everything Kak? series. Seven years in which a certain showerheaded individual has been in charge – and at first things were fine. Things were good. Couldn’t complain, you know.
But lately… Lately it’s just been madness. Zuma, Zupta, Gupta, Malema, Nkandla, hayi suka!
And that’s just the politics ending in “a”. Throw in Oscar, Shrien, social-media insanity, emoji birthday greetings and people who let slip what’s happened on Game of Thrones, and the result is a phoenix of kakness rising from the ashes of the ongoing JZ conflagration.
Welcome to the Zuma years. This is your whinger’s guide, from AA to JZ.
This excerpt from was published with permission from Two Dogs, an imprint of Burnet Media. Visit Takealot.com to purchase a copy of the book.