Today in wholesome: A pageant celebrating South African grandmothers

South Africa’s Tokoza township, outside of Johannesburg, was recently home to a pageant for grandmothers. Organised by the Sukuma Mbokodo Support Group, the heartwarming event celebrated the hard-working grannies who rarely get acknowledged by society.

What the granny pageant was all about

In this version of a beauty contest, there was no swimsuit or evening wear round. Instead, grandmothers flaunted their Sunday best, be it summer frocks, headwraps, strings of pearls or kitten heels. There was dancing and there were grandmas on the catwalk, but also prayers, speeches and a performance against domestic violence.

At the makeup corner, makeup artists and volunteer hairdressers decked up the grannies in red and berry lipsticks. Proving that grandmas rarely rest, 19-year-old volunteer hairdresser Ntokoza Ntshinga told AFP, "They don't focus. When you are doing their makeup they want to multitask, talk, bark instructions.”

But the fact that many of these women are used to keeping busy is often out of necessity.

The unrecognised labour of grandmothers

According to AFP, the organisers of the event said the impoverished sections of South African society depend on grandmothers a lot. Per AFP, official data says nearly four in 10 children are raised in homes headed by grandparents, for reasons ranging from parents relocating due to work, a high teen pregnancy rate and deaths due to AIDS. So, these grandmothers toil away tirelessly long past retirement age.

Even in countries like India, the amount of effort grandmothers put into maintaining the household, is largely ignored and neglecting the elderly is commonplace. People take for granted that grandmothers will also look after their grandchildren and carry the burden of domestic work forever. For many women, care-taking doesn't end when their child turns 18, these grannies included. Needless to say, their labour is also not acknowledged.

Despite working so hard for their families, they never really get rewarded or appreciated. One of the pageant organisers told AFP, "I just see the grannies are suffering. And the grannies, they do a good job, and that they are hard workers. And they grow their grandchildren, and we want all of us take care of them, because now they did a hard job and good job. So we want them—people-- to take care of them. People, some of them, they don't understand that they must keep, keep on loving grannies."

Bridget Thusi, a local Mayoral Committee member told AFP how the elderly are often neglected, and events like these are important to give them their due, "You know, often times, the minute they take pension, they are forgotten. All they do is look after great-grandchildren and grandchildren, so to have programs like this where they are celebrated and to forget their problems that they've got at home, it was really, really an amazing thing to see."

Why should only youth be celebrated?

Many of the grandmothers who attended this event found their spirits raised by the break they got from the tough realities of life. One of them told AFP, "I feel happy today. It brings my memories back, where I came from, it takes me back to my youth days when I was still young. When I still know I was sure of myself."

Another participant, Joyce Malindi, took this opportunity to return to the catwalk fifty-five years after winning her first beauty contest at 17, under the oppressive apartheid era in South Africa. She told AFP: "At our old age, we thought that maybe because our husbands are gone, everything is gone, it's the end of the world," but the pageant, "picked our spirits up...taught us we are still alive and life still goes on.”

The pageant’s winner, Margaret Fatyela, explained how this had lifted their spirits to AFP: "We are now like school children. I feel like I am young again, capable of doing everything.”

While it's a refreshing change to see age be celebrated, it's hard to ignore the fact that this is a rare occurrence. All over the world, there are countless pageants celebrating the beauty of young men and women. But due to the inherent ageism in the world, we see everything connected to aging as negative. Since our society places so much value on youth, events which celebrate senior citizens are uncommon. Is that fair? Shouldn't we toast to every wrinkle, every grey hair, and every bit of the wisdom our elderly bring?

With inputs from AFP