Give Her
Her Flowers

Every Women’s Day, we celebrate women.

We call them strong. Resilient. Selfless. Remarkable.

We tell stories about the burdens they carried, the barriers they broke and the sacrifices they made. We applaud the woman who survived what should never have happened to her. We admire the woman who kept going when she should never have had to carry so much alone.

But I sometimes wonder whether our celebration of women’s strength has become another way of asking women to endure more.

We give her flowers after she has survived.

After she has raised the children, held the family together, built the career, supported the dream, swallowed the disappointment and found the strength to begin again.

We recognise her when the work is complete. When the achievement is visible. When her sacrifice has produced something that others can admire.

But what about while she is still becoming?

Give her her flowers while she is still finding her way.

Give them to her when she is uncertain, when she is tired and when her life does not yet make for an inspiring story. Give them to her before she has proved that she can turn her pain into purpose.

Women should not have to suffer beautifully before they are considered worthy of honour.

Flowers are not only compliments.

Sometimes flowers look like credit.

Say her name when you speak about the work she helped build. Acknowledge her contribution without waiting for her to remind you that she was in the room.

Sometimes flowers look like opportunity.

Open the door before she has perfected every qualification. Trust her potential with the same ease with which potential is so often recognised in others.

Sometimes flowers look like support.

Do not simply praise her for carrying everything. Ask what you can take from her hands.

Sometimes flowers look like rest.

Let her pause without questioning her commitment. Let her choose herself without calling her selfish. Let her change her mind, begin again, leave what is hurting her and become someone different from the person everyone expects her to remain.

And sometimes flowers are simply the words: I see you.

I see you—not only as a mother, wife, daughter, colleague, leader or caregiver, but as a whole person. A woman with her own desires, contradictions, ambitions, disappointments and dreams.

South African Women’s Day reminds us of women who stood together and demanded to be seen as citizens with dignity, agency and a voice. Their courage deserves remembrance. But remembrance should also make demands of the present.

How do we treat the women who are alive now?

Do we listen to them?

Do we believe them?

Do we create room for their voices, or do we celebrate them only when their stories are comfortable enough for us to hear?

Do we value them for who they are, or mainly for what they can carry?

This Women’s Day, let us do more than call women strong.
Let us create lives in which they do not always have to be.

Give her her flowers before the farewell speeches, the memorial posts and the carefully written tributes.

Give them to her while she can still smell them.

While she can still hear what she meant to you.

While recognition can still become encouragement, support or change.

And to the woman who has spent her life giving flowers to everyone else: perhaps today is also an invitation to gather some for yourself.

You do not have to wait for someone else to recognise your becoming.

You are allowed to honour the woman you have been, the woman you are and the woman you are still becoming.

Give her her flowers.
And give them to her now.