It’s the 21st century, but countless South African women still struggle to become entrepreneurs, struggle even to open a small shop. The main culprit is the country’s deeply embedded patriarchal thinking, says Dr Mamphela Ramphele, even though this should have dissipated with its progressive post-apartheid constitution, which guarantees women equal rights.
But it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks.
“Patriarchal culture remains very strong in South Africa. Women are still regarded as minors. They are still asked if their husband has given permission, for example, if they want to access a loan, even though it is unconstitutional,” laments Ramphele.
Yet, enabling women to become entrepreneurs would have a direct, wide-reaching and often multi-generational impact on a country’s economic growth, she explains: “Successful women educate their children to ensure they escape the poverty trap, whereas with men, wealth remains with men. There are also progressive men, but they are few and far between. When you compare the return of investment in women versus men, it’s far higher for women.”
Ramphele became aware of the struggle for gender equality early on. Growing up in a traditional household in rural Limpopo, one of South Africa’s poorest provinces, she watched her mother, Rangoato Rahab, a strong, self-assured woman, standing up to her husband, father-in-law and brothers-in-law.
“My mother fought patriarchy. And I grew up to assert myself.”
Ramphele remembers how she learnt that a woman’s life did not have to be constrained by her gender. It gave her the confidence throughout her career to pursue her interests and convictions with integrity.
“Whether I’m alone or in a group of a hundred men, I’m not easily intimidated,” she says.
It’s a character trait essential for someone like Ramphele whose career has been marked by ‘firsts’ and ‘onlys’. She was one of very few black women to study medicine during apartheid; in 1996 she became the first black South African and first woman to become vice chancellor of a University—the University of Cape Town (UCT); the first African managing director at World Bank in 2000 and she is still the only black, female executive in some of the country’s boardrooms.
“Throughout my career, I had to bear this burden of being the only woman, the first woman. It’s not something to celebrate. It’s a serious commentary on a society that has not leveraged the talent of women. If anything, it energizes me to fight the battle for gender equality,” she says.
She surely did. At UCT, Ramphele regarded equity not just as affirmative action based on race, but also on gender and class and ensured women were given opportunities to pursue professorships and become academic leaders. A few years later, at the World Bank, she fought for the implementation of a gender policy that not only targeted women in developing countries but was applied to the bank’s internal structures as well.
Responsible for human development at the World Bank—the global financial institution widely criticized for its capitalist structural adjustment policy, which worsened inflation in many African countries—Ramphele tried to get the bank’s hardcore economists to understand the softer issues that make for sustainable development.
Although her task was difficult, her philosophy was simple: “Countries have to drive the partnership with the World Bank based on their own national development plans. One of the problems of African countries is that we lack the self-confidence to know that we can take ownership of these international entities that we belong to, shape them to serve our interests.”
That’s what she did.
“I didn’t apologize for being an African woman, for not being an economist. I said, ‘I know you’re good at doing economics, but I think you’re not doing well enough when it comes to human development’.”
Being non-apologetic is a red thread throughout Ramphele’s career. Already in the 1990s, when she was the first and only woman on the board of mining giant Anglo American, she lobbied for a more gender equitable management structure. Progress has been slow. Today, Anglo’s board is made up of nine men—eight of them white, one Asian—and only two women, one of whom is Ramphele, still the only black executive. Later this year, a third woman will join the board.
Since Ramphele became chair of another mining firm, Gold Fields, in 2010, she has lobbied for more gender consciousness there, too. It’s a lonely battle: “The fact is the board is still very much a male domain. One has to keep fighting. What’s important for women like me to recognize is that their success means very little unless it’s used to support and enhance the success of other women.”
Ramphele doesn’t place the blame with men alone. She stresses the fact that women who have made it in the business world have a responsibility to create networks that support other women in leadership and challenge patriarchal culture.
“There are lots of women who do that, but there are many more who don’t: the queen bees. Once they have made it, it’s only about them.”
Part of the problem is that women are struggling to position themselves, she believes, often out of fear of retribution.
“In parliament, as in boardrooms, women’s voices have been muffled. When women speak up, they are called disruptive, difficult, loud. But when men speak out, they are strong and decisive.”
It’s the gap between theory and practice. Although, theoretically, the glass ceiling that limits women’s success in business should have been lifted; in practice, it still exists. Again, Ramphele argues it has to be women who crack it, because men won’t do it on their behalf.
“The glass ceiling starts in women’s own psyche. The mindset shift has to start with women believing they are as good as anybody,” she suggests.
Women must have the humility to seek help, from other women as well as from supportive men.
“I’ve had mentors who were men—older men, white men. You’ve got to be open and recognize that there are a lot more men than women who have had the experiences you need.”
Another key to women’s success is to ensure their personal, professional and wider social values cohere, Ramphele believes: “Then you are at peace with yourself and don’t get intimidated when you’re alone in a boardroom where people make sexist or racist jokes. You just stand up and say, ‘That’s not acceptable’.”
Ramphele was lucky to grow up in a home that gave her the confidence to overcome many such hurdles. Even though she came from humble beginnings, her parents, both primary school teachers, had high expectations of her.
“They instilled the urge to excel in me. I was always number one in my class, but my father used to say, ‘That’s not good enough. You must now compete against yourself’.”
When her dream of becoming a scientist was destroyed by an apartheid ban on Africans studying mathematics and science, Ramphele enrolled for medicine and was accepted into the University of Natal’s Medical School in 1968, then the only institution that allowed black students to enlist without prior government permission.
“What medicine taught me was leadership, because in the medical profession, you have to take responsibility for every one of your actions,” she recalls, describing her student years as a time of immense personal growth.
It was here that she met anti-apartheid leader Steve Biko, with whom she co-founded the Black Consciousness Movement. She also fell in love with him and had a son by him. Together they fought for black self-worth and economic self-reliance.
Biko—who was killed by South African police 35 years ago—would be dismayed by the society South Africa’s leading African National Congress has created in the last two decades, Ramphele believes, which continues to suffer from high levels of poverty and inequity: “He’d be very disappointed that South Africa has not been able to realize its full potential.”
While the country has made strides in financial management, audited risk and governance, it has failed in areas Ramphele believes would contribute greatest to long-term economic sustainability: education, health and social development.
“We have the money, but there is no appetite within government to do the right thing,” she criticizes in her frank manner. “I can only suggest that they don’t think it’s important enough to invest in human capital.”
One of the greatest failures of South Africa’s development model was to turn 16 million people—almost a third of the population—into welfare recipients instead of promoting entrepreneurship, she argues: “That’s not sustainable and has enhanced inequity. Entrepreneurship is the only way South Africa can grow this economy fast enough, with a broad enough participation rate.” That way, the country could easily boost its economic growth from the currently meager 3.5% to 10%, she believes.
Hence, Ramphele’s latest pursuit is the Citizens Movement for Social Change, an organization she launched in April as a mechanism for citizens to hold government accountable.
“We need a mindset change, away from the notion that politics is for politicians,” she explains, likening South Africa to a business that cannot succeed if it ignores the interests of its shareholders.
“We, as citizens of South Africa, are the shareholders of South Africa Inc. The government is failing us, but the shareholder is missing in action. We need an engaged citizenry. To the extent that citizens acquiesce to the mismanagement of our state affairs, to that extent, we will fail as a country,” she says.

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The Struggle Continues