In working to end violence against women and children, we need to ensure that men are centrally involved. Men need to organise themselves in a sustained campaign against gender-based violence.
Whenever you go through the length and breadth of our country... you see a long face: you will see the long face of an African woman because she's black, because she's poor.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the struggle and suffering of African women due to systemic issues of race and poverty.
Cyril Ramaphosa's quote draws attention to the visible despair experienced by many African women, emphasizing how their condition is shaped by both racial and economic disparities. It reflects on the broader socio-political context in which these women exist, illustrating the intersection of race and poverty in their lives, and serves as a poignant reminder of the social injustices that persist in the world.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech advocating for social justice, one might say, 'As Cyril Ramaphosa poignantly reminds us, the long faces of African women reveal the urgent need for change.'
More from Cyril Ramaphosa
All quotes →There are times when leadership needs to take a bold move forward. And there are times when the leadership needs to act on the basis of what the grass roots say. You need to have your political thermometer constantly in the political waters to know when to give leadership in what way.
We need to mobilise our structures and our supporters to oppose state capture and corruption in whatever form it takes.
Violence against women and children resembles an epidemic. It has spread through society, sparing no social group or class.
No man is born believing that he has dominion over women. Instead, this view is handed down from generation to generation and amplified through social custom, culture, and popular media.
We must listen to the concerns of our people without dismissing them. When people see something wrong, there is something wrong. When our people see corruption, it means there is corruption. When our people see that their resources are being stolen by certain people, it means this is happening, and we should listen.
Similar quotes
History has different yardsticks for the cruelty of the Northerners and the cruelty of the Southerners in the Civil War. A slave-owner who through cunning and violence shackles a slave in chains, and a slave who through cunning or violence breaks the chains – let not the contemptible eunuchs tell us that they are equals before a court of morality!
I like some animals more than some people, some people more than some animals.
All of us, poor & rich alike, have been conditioned by our upbringings. Impoverished men & women may become lulled into a state of "learned helplessness" without hope to change their lives. Likewise, the wealthy can walk in a state of "learned blindness" ignoring the desperation of the local & global poor.
It is not rebellion itself which is noble but the demands it makes upon us.
It's not the one thing nor the other that leads to madness, but the space in between.
It is not difficult to deprive the great majority of independent thought. But the minority who will retain an inclination to criticize must also be silenced....Public criticism or even expressions of doubt must be suppressed because they tend to weaken pubic support....When the doubt or fear expressed concerns not the success of a particular enterprise but of the whole social plan, it must be treated even more as sabotage.