Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Albertina Sisulu, and Adelaide Tambo are often remembered as women who stood behind great men while their husbands were imprisoned, exiled, or silenced by Apartheid. However, that memory is incomplete.
These women are not simply supporting figures in South Africa’s liberation story; they are central characters in it. They were organisers, political actors, caregivers, and leaders who carried families, communities, and, in many ways, the struggle itself on their backs.
The new Netflix documentary The Trials of Winnie Mandela offers a deeply moving portrait of Mama Winnie — from her youth to her marriage, to becoming one of Apartheid’s fiercest opponents, and later enduring public scrutiny during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. What the documentary captures so powerfully is not just Winnie Mandela’s politics, but her resilience.
When Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years, Winnie kept his name alive. While the apartheid state tried to crush resistance, she remained visible, vocal, and defiant. At home, she was left to raise two daughters under immense pressure. In public, she became the face of resistance. In private, she still had to be a mother, provider, protector, and head of the household. She was expected to be everything.
That reality is not unique to Winnie Mandela. It is the lived reality of millions of South African women today.
According to Statistics South Africa, approximately 6.1 million households or 37.9% of all households in South Africa were headed by women in 2018, with female-headed households being most common in rural provinces such as the Eastern Cape (46.9%), Limpopo (45.8%), and KwaZulu-Natal (45.0%). More recent figures show that by 2024, that number had risen to 42.4% of households nationwide, meaning more than two in every five South African homes are led by women.
This is not a small social trend; it is the backbone of South African society. And yet, despite carrying homes, raising children, and often being the sole breadwinners, women continue to receive little recognition for their labour. Their sacrifices are normalised. Their struggles are overlooked. Their strength is expected.
Instead of appreciation, many are met with criticism, scrutiny, and impossible standards much like Winnie Mandela herself, whose legacy is too often reduced to controversy rather than the weight of what she carried.
I think of women like my own mother, and countless others whose names will never appear in documentaries or history books, but whose work has held families together against impossible odds. These women build homes from very little. They sacrifice quietly. They endure endlessly, yet we rarely tell their stories in full.
South African history has long celebrated men as heroes, while women are remembered as wives, widows, or footnotes to male greatness. Women were never standing beside history; they were making it.
The question is no longer whether women deserve recognition.
The real question is: when will we finally honour the women who have been carrying this country, often alone, all along?
FEATURED IMAGE: A graphic of resilient women. Photo by: Sanele Sithole
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