𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐬 𝐂𝐞𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐃𝐢𝐝𝐧’𝐭 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫. 𝐈𝐭 𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐆𝐨𝐭 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨 𝐒𝐞𝐞.
𝐁𝐲 𝐌𝐞𝐬𝐨 𝐐𝐡𝐨𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐚
Every August, South Africa celebrates Women’s Month. We share stories of remarkable women, quote the pioneers who came before us, and applaud the progress we’ve made. And rightly so. We’ve come a long way.
But somewhere between the celebrations and the statistics, it’s worth asking an uncomfortable question:
𝐇𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐀𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐰𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐬 𝐜𝐞𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠?
It depends on where you’re looking.
If you’re looking at Parliament, the answer seems to be yes. South Africa consistently ranks among the better-performing countries globally for women’s political representation. Women hold around 44% of parliamentary seats, and female leaders occupy prominent positions across government. Our Constitution is unambiguous in its commitment to equality, and our laws have created opportunities that many countries are still striving towards.
On paper, South Africa looks like a success story. Yet step into many boardrooms, executive committees and corporate headquarters, and the view changes dramatically. The higher you climb, the fewer women you see. One of the most misleading things about progress is that it can look complete long before it actually is. A generation ago, the barriers were obvious. Women were openly told certain jobs weren’t for them. Promotions were denied without apology. Leadership was often considered a man’s domain.
Today’s barriers are far subtler. Nobody says a woman can’t become CEO, they simply don’t appoint many. The glass ceiling hasn’t shattered, it’s become almost invisible. That’s what makes it so difficult to challenge.
According to the Commission for Employment Equity’s latest annual report and Just Share’s 2025 analysis of the JSE Top 40, women occupy only around 27% of executive management positions in South Africa’s largest listed companies. Just 6% of JSE Top 40 companies are led by a woman CEO.
Those numbers tell a very different story from the one reflected in our political achievements. The obvious assumption is that women simply aren’t entering the pipeline. The evidence suggests otherwise. Across professions such as finance, law, healthcare, education and human resources, women enter the workforce in significant numbers. Universities continue to produce highly qualified female graduates. Young women are ambitious, capable and increasingly well educated.
So where do they go? Somewhere between middle management and the executive floor, the pipeline begins to leak. Not because talent disappears but rather because opportunity often does.
One reason is something economists refer to rather clinically as unpaid care work. Although most of us might simply call it family life. It’s school runs, sick children, elderly parents, household chores and late homework. The endless invisible logistics that keep homes running.
A study by Morne Oosthuizen published by the University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit demonstrates that women continue to shoulder more unpaid domestic and caregiving work than men yet none of these responsibilities, or should I say skills, appear on a CV in spite of the fact that they shape careers every single day.
Corporate culture still tends to reward the person who’s available at any hour, who can travel at short notice, who can stay late without rearranging family life. Productivity is increasingly measurable, but visibility often remains the currency of promotion. And this may not always be deliberate discrimination but rather the result of an outdated model of work.
But let’s say the role of unpaid care worker doesn’t apply to a particular woman. Let’s say she works hard, she shows up, she adapts, and she remains reliable. There’s still the factor of mentorship, or rather, sponsorship. The two are often confused.
There’s another element of this conversation we don’t bring up often enough: leadership itself still has an image problem. Many workplaces continue to reward leadership styles traditionally associated with confidence, certainty and decisiveness, traits that have historically been interpreted differently depending on who displays them. Where a man is decisive, a woman can still be labelled difficult. This shows the same behaviour is often judged through different lenses. And progress has certainly been made, but unconscious bias has proved remarkably adaptable.
None of this diminishes what South Africa has achieved. Our constitutional commitment to equality matters. Women’s representation in government matters. The many women leading businesses, universities, schools, hospitals, laboratories and community organisations matter enormously but individual success should never be mistaken for systemic success. Celebrating a few exceptional women should not become an excuse to ignore exceptional barriers.
The encouraging news is that none of these challenges are beyond our ability to solve. Organisations that are serious about transformation need to move beyond annual diversity statements and symbolic campaigns instead they need to ask harder questions. They need to be asking who is being prepared for succession? Who actually gets recommended when nobody is looking? And perhaps most importantly, who is quietly being overlooked?
Women’s Month is, of course, a time to celebrate but perhaps it should also be a time to reflect honestly. The glass ceiling hasn’t disappeared. It has simply become cleaner. Harder to see making it easier to pretend it no longer exists.
Real progress won’t be achieved when we can point to a handful of remarkable women who broke through despite the odds. No, this is not enough. It will be achieved when breaking through no longer requires being remarkable in the first place. Because equality isn’t about proving that women can lead, South African women have clearly been proving that for generations. The real challenge is ensuring that leadership opportunities finally catch up with that reality.
Author Biography: Meso Qhobela is the Junior Marketing and Communications Manager at ORT South Africa. She holds postgraduate qualifications in Media Studies and Mass Communication. Through strategic storytelling, she helps amplify ORT SA’s work in education, skills development and youth empowerment. She is also a committed advocate for youth and gender empowerment and actively contributes to community upliftment initiatives.
