October 12, 2023 – ODILE MACKETT

JOHANNESBURG – For the past 16 years, South Africa has grappled with an acute energy crisis characterized by rolling blackouts, some lasting as long as 15 hours a day. In February, President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a national “state of disaster” and announced a bailout of the state-owned electricity company, Eskom. But the government’s failure to maintain a stable power supply has already had a profoundly negative impact on South Africans’ daily lives, especially on the lives of women and girls.

The recurring nationwide power outages, euphemistically known as “load shedding,” have plagued South Africa since 2007. Given that most South Africans depend on essential state-provided infrastructure – as of 2021, 77.7% of the country’s households relied primarily on electricity for cooking – this crisis has hit homemakers especially hard.

Load shedding is implemented in several stages, with each stage signifying the removal of an additional 1,000 megawatts of electricity from the grid. The first stage involves “three two-hour power outages over four days or three four-hour power outages over eight days,” while in the sixth stage, consumers “could be affected 18 times for four days for up to four-and-a-half hours at a time or 18 times over eight days for about two hours at a time.”

In addition to denying South African women access to essential infrastructure, the electricity crisis has compromised their safety. Recurring blackouts have been a boon for criminals, enabling them to steal cables – thereby prolonging the power outages – and terrorize people in their homes and neighborhoods. With streets and houses left unlit and home security systems rendered ineffective, burglaries, car thefts, and robberies have surged. In March, a 27-year-old veterinarian was murdered outside his Cape Town home by criminals tampering with his car during a load-shedding episode.

While South Africa’s law-enforcement authorities assert that they have not observed an increase in distress calls due to load shedding, numerous reports of sexual violence against women and children tell a different story. In one particularly horrifying case, a two-year-old girl was raped by her uncle during a power outage. Given that women are already vulnerable in public spaces, the electricity crisis has severely limited their mobility both outside and inside their homes.

The technological advances of the past century, particularly the introduction of the washing machine, transformed women’s lives, liberating them from time-consuming household chores and facilitating their entry into the labor force. Yet, even with many traditional services now offered by the state, women and girls often find themselves stepping in to fill gaps where public services are insufficient or absent. For example, they tend to assume the responsibility of caring for sick family members who lack proper access to health care. Similarly, when a household lacks amenities such as running water or electricity, the burden falls disproportionately on them.

By hindering women’s ability to use time-saving appliances such as ovens, microwaves, and washing machines to perform basic household chores, the electricity crisis has adversely affected young girls’ school performance and limited women’s employment opportunities, thereby threatening to erase decades of economic and social progress.

Moreover, the load-shedding crisis serves as a reminder of women’s invaluable economic and social contributions. Despite the government’s ongoing failure to deliver basic public goods, South African children and adults have continued to receive sustenance and care. Given the gendered division of labor within the typical household, this critical work is mostly carried out by women and girls, often overlooked – and unpaid.

As the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated, the load-shedding crisis has exacerbated South Africa’s existing gender and racial inequalities. Such crises not only reverse the progress made by women during more prosperous times but also diminish their ability to bounce back by forcing them out of the labor market and impeding their education.

For those who can afford it, there are ways to mitigate this crisis. One option is to go fully or partly off the grid. But this requires a significant initial investment and is thus inaccessible to many low-income households. Another option is to buy prepared meals or send laundry out to alleviate the burden of housework, which also requires financial resources and time that many impoverished families simply do not have. Households unable to access these alternative services are thus left without a viable solution, exacerbating existing inequalities.

To ensure equitable outcomes, South African policymakers must guarantee that reliable and sustainable electricity is available to everyone. To this end, adopting a fairer load-shedding strategy that considers socioeconomic factors is crucial. For example, the state-owned monopoly could reduce power outages in poorer neighborhoods.

The ongoing electricity crisis has underscored the rampant corruption and inefficiency that plague South Africa today. Unless the government adopts a more equitable strategy for conserving electricity, women’s well-being will continue to be disproportionately affected, further highlighting the discriminatory misogynistic logic underlying the country’s inadequate public services.

Odile Mackett, a feminist labor economist, is a senior lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand’s School of Governance.

Previously published on Project Syndicate on October 5, 2023

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2023.
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