Position ‘Imbokodo’ throughout society

Show us the courage and care that title demands

- BUSISIWE MADIKIZELA-THEU

MY FIRST real understanding of Imbokodo arrived at a male dialogue I attended years ago.

One of the guest speakers, addressing male initiation graduates, young men who had just completed ulwaluko, the Xhosa rite of passage that confers the social status and responsibilities of manhood said this: abafazi are not Imbokodo (women are not a rock).

They became Imbokodo by necessity when they had to fight at a time their men were being systematically silenced. Traditionally, he continued, abafazi (women) were known as imbali “flowers,” valued and protected, while a girl’s father and brothers were the Imbokodo, the “grindstone/rock,” the ones meant to anchor, shield, and enforce consequences.

If you as a man touched a girl inappropriately or harmed her, you met the wrath of Imbokodo - those men. That framing jolted me: it repositions Imbokodo not as women’s lifelong burden to carry, but as a protective social contract others owe to women.

Of course, language evolves. In 1956, “Wathint’ abafazi, wathint’ imbokodo” (“You strike a woman, you strike a rock”) entered our political bloodstream, rightly honouring women’s courage against a brutal state.

The problem is what happened next: a slogan hardened into an expectation that many of us wear like a yoke. Be rock. Absorb harm. Keep going. Smile. Be grateful And when you finally break under the weight of paid work, unpaid care, community activism, and the relentless calculus of safety in a violent society — well, somehow that breakage gets narrated as personal failure, not social failure.

Enter the so-called “soft life” Among my generation of women, the phrase signals a refusal to be the family’s permanent shock absorber. At its best, “soft life” is not champagne-and-Instagram; it’s rest without guilt, boundaries without apology, and care without a moral invoice. It is the audacity to say: I will not earn love through exhaustion. I will not confuse coping with flourishing.