Explore the 20th Artscape Women’s Humanity Festival, a celebration of courage and resilience inspired by the historic Women’s March of 1956, bringing together diverse communities to advocate for gender equality and inclusion.
When Rahima Moosa, Lilian Ngoyi, Sophie Williams-de Bruyn and Helen Joseph led 20 000 women to the Apartheid government’s headquarters at the Union Buildings in Pretoria on 9 August in 1956, they carried with them petitions containing over 100,000 signatures speaking out against injustice. They stood in absolute silence for 30 minutes before chanting "Wathint' Abafazi Wathint'imbokodo" ("You strike a woman, you strike a rock").
It is this courage, resilience, defiance and collective action of diverse women in the face of Apartheid brutality – denouncing injustice, specifically the draconian ‘dompas’ – that form the key pillars of this year’s Artscape Women’s Humanity Festival and those before.
The 20th edition of the Artscape Women’s Humanity Festival in association with Woman Zone, has once again been carefully curated by diverse community stakeholders for our communities to come together – women, persons with disabilities, the LGBTQIA+ community, performing artists, NGOs, civil society, interfaith groups, the youth, community leaders, ward councillors, media personalities, gender activists, academia, and activists to use the arts as platform for action, to reflect on where we are 70 years after the iconic Women’s March.
