CELEBRATING THE TRUE STRENGTH OF WOMEN

When Nambitha Mpumlwana, an actress in the Oscar award-winning film Tsotsi, delivered her speech on the role of women at the weekend, the silence in the audience was deafening.

There was no hushed mumbling, no clatter of those attending stumbling around.

Speaking at the Durban University of Technology's Convocation at the Hilton hotel on Friday, Mpumlwana greeted her audience with her powerful poem Sing me a song, woman.

'I am not a woman, I am woman'. The actress, who also acts in The LAB on SABC3, was amongst a list of speakers who were critical of Women's Day being treated as just another public holiday by many South Africans. "If you are going to celebrate women, you must know what you are celebrating. "We are not just celebrating hysterical women chasing men out of a beer hall on 9 August 1956, but are celebrating what was raised in us by women."

Mpumlwana told of one of the most incredible days in her life: "When my son was three years old and I was holding down two jobs, I realised the power that I had, the power all women have." She said, with great emotion: "I am not a woman, I am woman." While reading her poem, the crowd watched in silence and listened to every inspiring word.