Nzimande: Women keeping SA households functional

Nzimande delivered his political report at the party’s national congress in Boksburg on Thursday.

The congress will also see Nzimande step down after more than 20 years at the helm of the SACP when it elects new leadership.

Nzimande told delegates that women have the capacity to look and care for every member of their family.

"In the household comrades, it is women who carry a disproportionate burden of housework. Women are set to work a double day, those who are working they go to work or in the informal economy and then come home and start again with cooking, cleaning, homework,  bathing children, looking after the elderly, looking after the sick members of the family,  and often tending to the needs of the man in the household as well.

"In fact, comrades, if truth be told, most households in South Africa today are functional despite the enormity of the challenges that they are facing because of the role of women in those households."

Nzimande added that gender inequality needs to be eradicated in the family.

"We need to eradicate gender inequality within the family and ensure that women are safe in the home, community, and workplace. We need to ensure that women have access to resources for full participation in the economy, in politics, and in social life, by ensuring that whatever specific needs they have they need to be catered for. 

"In all this comrades the truth is black working class and poor women are there most affected because of the legacy of triple oppression that comprises racial oppression, class super exploitation and piratical domination.

"The struggle for socialism is simultaneously a struggle against women's oppression.”

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