This Saturday we all celebrated Women’s Day in South Africa — a day where we honour women’s resilience, leadership, and contribution. But Dr Roze says it’s time to stop celebrating resilience and start asking the system to be accountable. She calls it The Permanent Understudy Economy and that “we need to stop empowering women”. If that seems a bit counterintuitive—especially during Women’s Month, then yes—because it’s become a comfortable lie. We love to say, “Let’s empower women.” But empowerment often assumes that women are the problem. That they lack confidence. That they need fixing. We’ve made a career out of asking women to endure, adapt, and be endlessly ‘empowered’ without ever actually transferring power. That’s the heart of the Permanent Understudy idea.
Women Empowerment is not the same as Women In Power
