The match began with five successive breaks of serve – mostly due to excellent returning by both players – but it was Sabalenka who finally took charge.
Doubles specialist Townsend, who walked out wearing a long, black-feathered outfit, continued to frustrate Sabalenka and forced her to serve out the set at the second opportunity, before making the breakthrough in the second set.
But Sabalenka, aware she must lift the trophy to have a chance of retaining her number one ranking, produced an immediate reply as she broke back to love.
That signalled the start of Sabalenka’s dash to the finish line. The top seed lost just five points across the final five games to end Townsend’s challenge in 75 minutes.
Sabalenka was full of praise for Townsend, saying: “What an incredible player she is, approaching the net, a great returner, moving well, very brave.
“You can see how focused she was. It was really challenging playing her, especially here.
“Thank you so much [to the crowd] for being so respectful to me. I knew coming into this match that you guys would be on her side, but you were sometimes cheering for me and I really appreciate that.”
At home on the US Open hard courts, Sabalenka has not failed to reach the semi-finals here since 2020.
But, following a fourth-round exit at Wimbledon, she is aiming to avoid a first season without a major title since 2022.
Noskova’s sense of relief was cleared as she crouched to the ground after taking her sixth match point about an hour after earning her first.
The 21-year-old served for the match in the second set, but missed her first two match points as Kostyuk battled back from 5-3 down to force a decider.
The players exchanged breaks of serve in a tense final set, but it was Noskova who emerged, once again, with a 5-3 advantage.
Noskova failed to take her next two match points as a couple of misses helped Kostyuk to deuce, and missed her fifth after saving a break point, before finally getting over the line after an emotionally draining two and a half hours on court.
“I am more than relieved, this match was so tough, emotionally a bit more than physically,” Noskova said.
“Today was very close, it could have ended both ways. With all the chances I had in the second set, it was tough to still kind of restart.”
Carlos Alcaraz swept Wu Yibing aside to reach the US Open fourth round – and said he is getting better with every match as he continues his return from a long-term injury lay-off.
The Spaniard underlined why he remains a serious contender to defend his title in New York with a 6-3 6-4 6-1 victory over China’s Wu.
The 23-year-old’s opening-round match in Flushing Meadows was his first on a singles court for 139 days after injuring his wrist in April.
Alcaraz came through his opener in straight sets but had to battle back from a set down against Portugal’s Jaime Faria in the second round.
However, Alcaraz continued to build momentum on Friday, needing two hours and 20 minutes on court to beat Wu.
“To be honest, I’m better than I thought,” the seven-time major champion said.
“Physically I thought I was going to be bad after the first match, but I am recovering really well. I am doing great things off the court to be in a good state.
“Right now, I think my level is really good. I think I have caught the rhythm of the competition.
“Every time that I step on the court I give it all. I’m just trying to improve, be better every match and I think I’m getting there.”
American 20th seed Tommy Paul – who Alcaraz has beaten six times in a row – awaits in the fourth round.
Alcaraz’s path to an eighth major title has opened up over the past few days.
French Open champion and Wimbledon runner-up Alexander Zverev heads the men’s draw in the absence of injured world number one Jannik Sinner.
As the second seed, Alcaraz cannot meet Zverev until the final – and the German has been taken to five sets and kept on court until 2am in his two matches so far.
Novak Djokovic suffered a shock first-round exit to Argentine Mariano Navone, while Canadian third seed Felix Auger-Aliassime lost to Karen Khachanov in the second round.
As it stands, American eighth seed Ben Shelton is the only top-10 player that Alcaraz can meet before the semi-finals. He could then face seventh seed Daniil Medvedev in the last four.
Alcaraz has won all three of his meetings with Shelton and has a 6-3 winning head-to-head against Medvedev – although the inconsistent Russian beat him at Indian Wells in March.
Meanwhile, Zverev’s potential pre-final opponents include home hope Taylor Fritz and Italy’s French Open runner-up Flavio Cobolli.
Teenager Stan Moody knocked four-time champion John Higgins out of the British Open with a 4-2 victory in the last 16.
Moody, 19, progressed to the quarter-finals for the second successive year thanks to a strong finish at Cheltenham Racecourse.
Scot Higgins, 51, twice came from behind to level at 2-2, but a break of 46 nudged Moody 3-2 ahead before a 69 clearance – after four-time world champion Higgins led 61-0 – sealed victory.
Moody will face fellow Englishman Liam Highfield in the last eight on Friday.
Judd Trump breezed into the quarter-finals by beating fellow Englishman David Gilbert 4-0 thanks to breaks of 118 and 105 in the final two frames.
Trump, 37, will face China’s Zhao Xintong after the world number one overcame England’s Mark Joyce 4-2.
Englishman Jack Lisowski triumphed 4-1 over China’s Lyu Haotian to set up a meeting with England’s four-time world champion Mark Selby, who beat Ukraine’s Iulian Boiko 4-2.
Wales’ Jak Jones defeated Latvian Artemus Zizins 4-2, while Northern Ireland’s Aaron Hill beat China’s Fan Zhengyi 4-0 and Highfield saw off China’s Long Zehuang 4-1.
There was a moment, not so long ago, when Bradley Barcola’s career appeared to have stalled.
Having earned rave reviews after nailing down a regular starting place in Lyon’s starting XI under Peter Bosz, the 20-year-old winger was out of favour and in the reserves by the time the Dutch coach was replaced by Laurent Blanc in October 2022.
According to L’Equipe,, external Barcola was close to joining Swiss club St Gallen in January 2023 in order to get more game time before an act of petulance by a team-mate helped pave his return to the side.
Fans were unhappy with the team’s poor form – making first-choice forward Karl Toko Ekambi a target for their frustrations.
The relationship between the Cameroon international and Lyon’s ultras fractured further when he stormed down the tunnel and kicked a rubbish bin in frustration after being substituted during a 2-1 home defeat by Strasbourg.
The incident was caught on camera and Toko Ekambi never played for Lyon again.
That presented Barcola with an opportunity which he seized. He started the majority of the remaining matches that season, scoring five times, including a winner at champions-in-waiting Paris St-Germain in April 2023.
Five months after that goal at the Parc des Princes, Barcola was a PSG player.
His reported £38.5m move – two weeks after Brazil forward Neymar swapped Paris for Saudi Arabia – came with Lyon struggling in the table and also unable to sign replacements because of financial restrictions.
“Barcola’s first game for PSG was back at Lyon,” Pierre-Etienne Minonzio, football journalist for L’Equipe, told BBC Sport.
“He was booed by the Lyon fans because it was just after the transfer. PSG boss Luis Enrique asked Barcola, who was very young at the time, if he was ready to play.
“He said yes, came on as a substitute, and it was impressive.”
Barcola, nicknamed the ‘grasshopper’ because of his speed, agility and slight frame, has since gone on to win three Ligue 1 titles and back-to-back Champions Leagues in his three seasons in the French capital. He broke into the France side two years ago, and scored three times as this summer’s World Cup as they reached the semi-finals.
It has been quite the journey from kicking a ball about as a schoolboy on the playing fields of Vaulx-en-Velin – situated to the east of Lyon – to becoming a superstar worth nine figures. But the path has not been without challenges.
“Barcola is hugely ambitious,” added Minonzio.
“He is from a generation of young French talent who are prepared to work hard and want to be a better version of themselves.
“They will do whatever they have to do to get there. They don’t ask questions – they just do it.”
They need only flip three seats and, going back well over half a century, the average midterm gain for a party out of the White House is more than two dozen. Even with the advantage the GOP engineered through aggressive gerrymandering, the deadweight of a deeply unpopular president threatens to drag down a number of Republicans in competitive and some otherwise-not-so-competitive races.
There are 35 contests on the ballot in November. Of those, nearly two dozen are effectively over before they’ve even started, given the advantage one party holds over the other. Of the remainder, most are being held in states Trump won in 2024, which makes them, broadly speaking, much friendlier terrain for Republicans.
Democrats need to flip four Senate seats and until fairly recently that inhospitable political map made it seem like an all-but insurmountable challenge.
“Republicans still retain a structural advantage given the partisan challenges of the map, and Democrats still need almost every key race to break their way,” Jessica Taylor, who tracks Senate races for the Cook Report, wrote in a recent analysis. But, she went on, “in a wave election akin to 2006” — when Democrats gained six Senate seats — “even states that President Donald Trump won by double digits could move within Democrats’ reach.”
Not so fast. A toss-up means it’s just as likely Republicans will retain their Senate majority.
Understood. So break it down.
Let’s start with those things Democrats have going for them, with the usual caveats …
… There are no certainties but death and taxes. Got it. Go on.
At one time, Georgia looked to be a toss-up as Democrat Jon Ossoff sought reelection in one of those battleground states Trump carried. But Ossoff has raised a boatload of money and drawn a less-than-world-beating opponent in Republican Rep. Mike Collins. Lately, the buzz around Ossoff has been focused more on a potential 2028 run for president than his November reelection.
Meantime, in North Carolina, where former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper is running against former national GOP Chairman Michael Whatley, a Cooper victory seems much more likely than not. A win there would give Democrats one of the four seats they need to flip.
Then there’s a handful of red-state seats that Republicans are fighting to hang on to, in Alaska, Iowa, Ohio and Texas.
Do tell.
In Alaska, former Rep. Mary Portola managed to win nearly 50% of the vote in the Aug. 18 primary, which is noteworthy given she ran on the same ballot as the GOP incumbent, Dan Sullivan, who finished second. (Another Dan Sullivan also appeared on the ballot; under Alaska’s top-four system both Sullivans will advance to a November runoff, along with Portola. The fourth slot is pending.
In Ohio, former Sen. Sherrod Brown, who was elected three times before losing his 2024 reelection bid amid a Trump landslide, faces Republican Jon Husted, who was appointed to fill the seat vacated when JD Vance became vice president. Husted has proved a less-than sure-footed candidate while Brown is waging a strong comeback campaign.
Supporters applaud as Democratic Ohio Senate candidate Sherrod Brown speaks at a campaign event in Akron
(Sue Ogrocki / Associated Press)
In Iowa, Rep. Ashley Hinson (a USC grad and former KABC-TV intern!) is running against state Rep. Josh Turek in a state that’s been hammered by Trump’s tariffs and the surging price of gas — especially the diesel fuel that sustains Iowa’s all-important agricultural economy. Turek could also benefit from the strong campaign being waged by gubernatorial front-runner Rob Sand, who tops the Democratic ticket.
Democrats haven’t won a statewide contest in Texas since 1994, despite no end of hype and hope. This time, they’re pinning their dreams on state Rep. James Talarico, a seminarian and viral sensation. But what’s made the race highly competitive is the singularly defective GOP nominee, Ken Paxton, whose splotchy resume includes indictment, impeachment and alleged adultery. On top of all that, he’s been a pretty lousy fundraiser and has yet to bind the wounds left by a savage GOP primary.
So everything is coming up Democratic roses?
Not necessarily.
Two states they’re counting on to flip the Senate, Maine and Michigan, have grown problematic.
Maine once looked to be Democrats’ best pickup opportunity. Incumbent Susan Collins is the lone Republican running in a state Kamala Harris carried in 2024. Then came Graham Platner, along with his inflammatory social media postings, Nazi tattoo and allegations of sexual assault. He stepped aside in July and was replaced by Troy Jackson, a former logger and state Senate president, who has considerable ground to make up after his late start.
Collins, who’s been reelected four times, has a history of winning tough races. The Platner debacle certainly hasn’t helped Jackson or Democrats.
Meanwhile, in Michigan, the progressive Abdul El-Sayed inched past a more centrist alternative to win the Democratic nomination. The question is whether he’s too far left (and, frankly, whether there’s too much anti-Muslim sentiment) for El-Sayed to prevail in that purple state. The Republican nominee, former Rep. Mike Rogers, ran two years ago and lost by less than half a percentage point.
Good to know. A lot can happen in the next 65 days.
Exactly.
Which is why we stick to columnizing. If you want predictions, ask a mystic or consult your Magic 8 Ball.
SACRAMENTO — After weeks of intense negotiation, state lawmakers on Friday reached a compromise on legislation to regulate energy use by California’s growing data center industry, action triggered by community anger over the facilities and fears of high utility bills in some communities.
The goal, according to legislators and advocates, is to protect consumers from growing electricity costs driven upward by the sprawling facilities and to track the centers’ immense energy and water consumption.
Business groups representing tech companies argued that some of the proposed restrictions and requirements, along with California’s high energy costs and lack of available land, would make it difficult for data centers to open in the state.
Municipalities risk missing out on tax revenues and jobs from the centers if the industry goes elsewhere, they said.
Two bills to regulate the controversial industry consumed the state Legislature in the final weeks of the 2026 session, drawing in Gov. Gavin Newsom and industry organizations and lobbyists representing some of the world’s most influential companies, including Google, Meta, Amazon and artificial intelligence firms such as Anthropic and OpenAI.
Proposed legislation by Sen. Steve Padilla (D-Chula Vista) and Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur (D-Los Angeles), finalized Friday, would establish special rules for data centers’ electrical use. The legislation requires the California Public Utilities Commission to create special rates and updated rules for data centers’ use of electricity, including the costs for new power for infrastructure upgrades.
The debate in Sacramento around the data centers centered on how much they should pay for power and infrastructure, and whether that should be mandated by the state Legislature or the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates investor-owned utilities and is controlled by a board appointed by the governor.
An aerial view of a 49.5-megawatt data center under construction in Vernon last month.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Nevertheless, advocates focused on reforming the state’s utilities sought this year to seize the moment to enact tough regulations, including forcing data centers to pay for transmission upgrades and wildfire mitigation efforts.
Utility reform advocates and environmental leaders offered mixed reaction on Saturday.
Matthew Freedman, a senior staff attorney for The Utility Reform Network (TURN), praised the final language in the two bills, saying the legislation would prevent data center costs from “being foisted on other customers” while helping California meet its clean energy goals.
Monica Embrey, the founder of Affordable Energy Campaign, called the last-minute amendments “concerning.”
In particular, she pointed to a lack of clean energy requirements for data centers who use their own energy, and a provision that allows a utility to enter into its own agreement with a data center for energy in the interim period before the state finalizes its regulations.
A representative for the Data Center Coalition, whose members include Google and Microsoft, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Data centers have existed for decades but are rapidly expanding because of the rise of artificial intelligence, or AI. The centers help power everything from streaming services to videoconferencing calls.
Data centers in California are typically smaller than the mammoth, 500+-megawatt AI facilities making headlines in other parts of the country. Electricity costs and state regulations on gas-powered generators limit the vast majority of them to under 100 megawatts.
But as proposals increase in number, opposition has been fierce and growing.
A Public Policy Institute of California poll from July showed that 73% of residents oppose the construction of data centers in their communities.
Opposition centers on water use, air and noise pollution, and the potential for data centers to raise utility bills as they add strain to the grid requiring costly upgrades and new electricity supply.
The California Energy Commission expects data center electricity use, currently 2% of the state’s demand, to double in the next 10 years.
Monterey Park became the first city in the country in June to permanently ban data centers by a popular vote, and at least four other San Gabriel Valley cities have enacted moratoriums.
Southeast of L.A., Imperial County, Desert Hot Springs, and Palm Springs also voted on moratoriums, while Coachella permanently banned the facilities. In the Central Valley, Tulare County adopted a moratorium this month as residents voiced opposition to proposals to develop tiny data centers on local fairgrounds in the region.
And in San José, the state’s hot spot of data center development, residents flooded a recent public hearing to call for a moratorium while the city updates its data center standards.
Newsom last year vetoed legislation by Assemblymember Diane Papan (D-San Mateo) that would have required data centers to disclose and certify their water consumption. The governor said he was reluctant to impose “rigid” reporting requirements on the development of “this critically important digital infrastructure.”
Separate bills that would require the centers to disclose their energy and water use were recently approved by state lawmakers.
Like other state legislators, Papan said she wants to work with the centers, not ban them.
“I constantly say, ‘Help us help you.’ We will all get this right if we can just be transparent and methodical,” said Papan, whose district includes Silicon Valley.
Padilla’s district includes Imperial Valley, where a developer’s plans for a data center on 75 acres is sparking fierce backlash.
Advocates and lawmakers fought over two approaches on the issue of regulating data centers’ energy use.
A wider coalition of environmental groups supported the bill from Padilla, SB 886, sponsored by TURN, that would have required data centers to pay up front for broader power grid updates required to meet their demand. That approach made it into the final package.
TURN pointed to a recent transmission plan from California’s grid operator projecting that increased power demands from data centers in PG&E‘s service territory, where the majority of current and proposed data centers are concentrated, would create up to $1.8 billion in upgrade costs for the power grid, including transmission lines.
PG&E favored a less stringent approach. In an email earlier this week, a PG&E spokesperson argued SB 886 would “risk higher costs for customers and delay critical infrastructure needed to serve the state’s growing energy demand.”
The Data Center Coalition had opposed both bills for “singling out” one type of power user.
The high cost of land and power, as well as lack of available land, are just some of the reasons that California hasn’t seen a flood of data centers, said Khara Boender, a director of government affairs at the Data Center Coalition. She said dozens of states offer some type of exemption for data centers, but California does not.
Additional regulation in the Golden State, she said earlier this week, “would be another signal that the state is a more challenging place for data center development.”
Rescuers raced to clear roads leading to the mudslide-hit border port of Gyirong in southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, so more personnel can reach the core disaster zone. Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu reports from Beijing.
The Swede set Celtic on their way and Duran’s double did the rest, a gorgeous volley – on the back of hustling and harassing of the LASK defence – and then that sumptuous team goal that rounded it off.
O’Neill said the club has a bargain in Duran and the early signs are that he was an absolute steal at somewhere between £4.5m and £6m, depending on who’s talking.
The Colombian has intelligence and guile but he’s also got the work-ethic that means every bit as much as his other qualities.
In the 72nd minute, Celtic were 3-0 ahead, and yet there the 24-year-old was darting back into defence to help out, tracking LASK men until they were hounded out of possession.
As much as his goals, his lung-busting effort to put in a shift made him a hero of the night for Celtic people. Honesty counts for a lot.
It’s easy to say that Celtic learned their lesson from a year ago and splashed the cash. They spent close to £30m and now they’re getting their reward. It’s never that simple.
Spending is something that Celtic have done a lot of over the years. Spending wisely has been their problem. Splurging money on last-minute loans who, surprisingly, turn out to be duds.
Forking out multiple millions on recent and not so recent failures – from Balikwisha to Barkas – has been the problem. The decision-making has been awful too often.
Duran represents a return to form, a reminder of the days when they found value, mostly under Ange Postecoglou.
We’re too quick to write off players and we can also be too quick to brand them as stars in waiting. You should tread carefully at all times. With Duran we’ll take the plunge – this guy looks special.
Beyond offering a physical distraction, Kasper Hogh was quiet against LASK, but he will score plenty in the weeks and months ahead. At £11m, he, too, looks like money very well spent.
Trump announces pause on 50 percent duty on Canadian exports shortly before midnight deadline.
Published On 19 Aug 202619 Aug 2026
The United States and Canada have reached a deal to avert steep tariffs on billions of dollars of Canadian goods, US President Donald Trump has announced.
Trump made the announcement shortly before the expiry of a midnight deadline for imposing a 50 percent duty on a wide range of Canadian exports, including electronics, industrial machinery, furniture, and dairy products.
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“I have paused the 50% Tariffs against Canada, that were scheduled to kick in tomorrow morning for a three day period, based on the fact that Canada and the U.S.A., subject to the finalization of documents, have a DEAL!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
“The great Keystone XL Pipeline, long ago killed by Sleepy Joe Biden, may be awoken from the grave!”
The Glen Canyon Dam is shown releasing water into the Colorado River at the Grand Canyon in Page, Ariz., on March 5, 2008. Water levels in Lake Powell, the reservoir created by the dam, fell to their lowest levels on record over the weekend amid continuing severe drought. File Photo by Tami Heilemann/Department of the Interior/UPI | License Photo
Aug. 16 (UPI) — Lake Powell, a vital man-made water reservoir on the Colorado River, has fallen to its lowest level on record as the U.S. West endures a severe, long-lasting drought, official statistics show.
The lake’s levels fell to 3519.91 feet on Saturday — low enough to break the record of 3,519.92 feet set in April 2023, according to a reading published Sunday by the Bureau of Reclamation.
Federal officials say the effects of long-term drought had reduced Colorado River Basin system storage to about 36% of capacity as of April. This was due to a combination of the lowest snowpack on record last winter and record-breaking heat in March, which intensified drought conditions across the river basin.
The situation has set off widespread concerns over elevated risks to the essential water and power infrastructure that supplies more than 40 million people across the West.
The lake, which spans Utah and Arizona, is a reservoir created by the Glen Canyon Dam in Page, Ariz.
The Bureau of Reclamation in April predicted Lake Powell’s water year minimum probable inflow at just 2.78 million acre-feet — only 29% of historical average and one of the lowest on record.
It also warned lake could decline to below 3,490 feet — the minimum power pool level — by this summer without major intervention.
If Glen Canyon Dam declines below that level, water releases would be restricted, creating “uncertainty for users, downstream impacts, instability in regional power and water supplies, and a reduction in power generation.”
Another vital reservoir in the Colorado River Basin, Lake Mead, is also currently at its lowest level since it was created in the 1930s.
The Bureau of Reclamation and the Department of the Interior remain “committed to reducing the collective risk of both Lake Powell and Lake Mead falling below critical elevations to protect critical infrastructure to continue to meet the water and hydropower needs of the basin,” a spokesman told CNN on Sunday.
One of my favourite protest songs rings out every year on August 9, which is Women’s Day in South Africa. The song works as a call and response: one set of voices cries out, “You have struck a woman,” while another set responds, “so, you have struck a rock!”
The chant dates back to the historic protest that gave South Africa’s Women’s Day its date and meaning. In 1956, 20,000 women marched on the Union Buildings in Pretoria in opposition to “pass laws” that the apartheid regime was seeking to extend to African women. African men were already subject to the indignity of carrying passes, and with this latest move, thousands of domestic workers across the country immediately understood that they too would be subjected to random stops and searches by police. What little freedom of mobility they enjoyed would be snatched away.
Led by the multiracial Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW) and the Women’s League of the African National Congress (ANC), a group of politically engaged women organised a petition and a march to oppose the incoming laws.
After months of hard work, thousands of women, most of them Black, woke up at the crack of dawn and began to make their way to the Union Buildings, the seat of power of the Afrikaner government. By nine that morning, they had gathered in front of the office of the Minister for Native Affairs.
It was no accident that the rally took place on a Thursday, which was also known as “Sheila’s Day.” In the 1950s and 1960s, Sheila was a generic name used to describe Black women who were domestic workers; a casual way for white women employers to refer to the African women who worked in their homes without having to remember their actual individual names. Most madams gave their staff Thursdays off and so it came to be known as Sheila’s Day.
As a delegation handed over a petition, the women broke out in song, pointedly addressing then Prime Minister JG Strijdom and insisting, “Strijdom, you have struck the women, so you have struck a rock!”
I was a young feminist in the 1990s and I remember singing that song countless times at rallies, protesting gender-based violence and calling for treatment for pregnant women living with HIV and AIDS. I remember, too, the stories of older women who marched on August 9, who reminded younger activists that many of them had taken to the streets over the objections of their husbands and fellow male comrades. They explained that at the time they did not have the language to explain how race, class and gender intersected; they just knew how sexism felt in their bodies.
By the time we were marching for a new set of rights, they had gifted us the language and analysis to describe how race, class and gender shaped women’s experiences. Their stories also showed us that sexism did not sit neatly outside the struggle against apartheid: women could stand alongside men in a liberation movement while still having to fight for equality with those same men. This was one of the most important legacies of the women’s march in 1956.
The rally that day failed to stop the pass laws, but it had a far more significant impact on the South African political landscape, effectively launching the South African women’s movement. The momentum and defiance of that day gave women in subsequent generations a blueprint for activism and analysis.
When apartheid ended in 1994, many of the women who had been at the forefront of the march in 1956 were still active in politics. The movement they had helped build was such a powerful force in the transition to democracy that almost a third of the incoming parliament comprised women, making South Africa one of only a handful of countries with such strong women’s representation in politics.
Once they were in power, the daughters of 1956 pushed through numerous legal and policy changes on reproductive rights, customary law and marriage – and the rights of domestic workers.
As a result of their efforts, South Africa has some of the most progressive laws and policies promoting gender equity and equality in the world. More than 30 years after the end of apartheid, women still constitute about 45 percent of parliamentarians and 44 percent of ministers.
Yet these gains have not translated into safety. South Africa’s first national gender-based violence study found that 33.1 percent of women aged 18 and older had experienced physical violence in their lifetime, while one in five men surveyed admitted to perpetrating physical or sexual intimate partner violence. The persistence of such violence exposes the limits of formal equality: laws can change faster than the attitudes, relationships and behaviours that shape women’s lives.
The same gap between formal rights and lived reality is evident in economic life. The disconnect between the rights enjoyed by women in positions of power who have helped shape South Africa’s laws and the lives of women in the poor communities to which they are accountable is stark.
South African women living in poverty are besieged by high levels of unemployment, gender-based violence and poor access to health and education services, while middle-class women enjoy many of the privileges once reserved for whites only. This is because in the last 30 years the ANC-led government has done little to dismantle the underlying economic structures that upheld apartheid. Formal equality has not translated into material equality for millions of women.
It is hard to find hope for women in South Africa’s statistics. Indeed, many women I know don’t celebrate Women’s Day – they are weary. Yet the women’s movement that the march helped galvanise 70 years ago still has much to teach us.
The lesson we learn from the vibrant movement that was created that day is that gender equality cannot be driven by women’s demands alone. Real progress requires call and response. Women have been making the call for generations. It is time for men to respond.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
