The First for Women Her and Now 2025 Report: The Quiet Revolution Redefining What It Means to Be a Woman in South Africa

South African women are redefining what it means to be powerful.

 

For decades, the image of the “strong woman” has been deeply woven into South African culture. Strength has often been measured through sacrifice, endurance, emotional labour, caregiving, and the ability to continue carrying life’s burdens no matter how overwhelming they become. Women have long been celebrated for surviving difficult circumstances, supporting entire households, and remaining emotionally available for everyone around them.

But beneath this admiration sits a quieter and more complicated reality.

The Her and Now: Insights into the Women of South Africa 2025 Report by First for Women reveals that many women no longer want strength to mean constant suffering. Instead, a subtle but powerful cultural shift is taking place. Women are beginning to redefine success, resilience, ambition, rest, emotional wellbeing, and even femininity itself.

Based on insights gathered from more than 4,000 South African women across different provinces, age groups, and income brackets, the report paints a nuanced picture of womanhood in modern South Africa. Women today are more expressive, connected, and ambitious than ever before, yet many are simultaneously exhausted, emotionally burdened, financially strained, and carrying invisible pressure every single day.

Rather than portraying women purely as victims or symbols of empowerment, the report explores the complexity of modern womanhood. It reveals a generation of women trying to hold onto their ambition while also reclaiming peace, softness, emotional safety, and the right to rest without guilt.

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The burden of being the “strong woman”

One of the clearest themes throughout the report is the emotional cost attached to resilience.

Many women say they feel trapped inside expectations that celebrate their ability to endure while overlooking the personal toll that endurance takes on their mental health, emotional wellbeing, relationships, and sense of identity. Strength, in many cases, has become less of a choice and more of an obligation.

The findings reveal that more than 90% of women say people assume they can handle everything because they are perceived as resilient. At the same time, 68% admit that they judge themselves more harshly than others do.

This pressure appears in deeply personal ways. The report found that 67% of women feel expected to “keep it all together” every single day, while 68% say other people depend on them emotionally, financially, or socially on a daily basis.

What makes these findings particularly striking is how normalised this emotional labour has become. Many women are expected to remain dependable regardless of their own emotional state. They are often positioned as the emotional foundation of households, workplaces, relationships, and communities, even when their own wellbeing is quietly deteriorating beneath the surface.

The report argues that society has romanticised resilience to the point where exhaustion is now mistaken for empowerment. Women are applauded for coping, but rarely given permission to stop coping.

 

Motherhood is intensifying emotional and mental strain

For mothers, this pressure often becomes even more severe.

The report found that 65% of mothers strongly agree that the expectation to “keep it together” becomes more intense once they become parents. Another 60.7% say they regularly sacrifice their own needs in order to maintain family stability.

These sacrifices are not only financial or practical. They are emotional as well.

Many women describe constantly suppressing their own stress, fears, exhaustion, and vulnerability because they feel responsible for keeping everyone else emotionally afloat. The emotional burden of caregiving, combined with financial pressure and social expectations, leaves many women feeling unsupported despite being the primary source of support for others.

The report further reveals that more than half of women frequently feel emotionally disconnected or drained, while 44% say they feel unsupported even though they are constantly expected to be strong for everyone around them.

This contradiction sits at the centre of the report’s findings. Women are praised for their resilience, yet many are quietly overwhelmed by the responsibility that resilience demands.

 

South African women still do not feel safe

Another major finding within the report is the ongoing impact of safety concerns on women’s daily lives.

For many South African women, freedom is heavily restricted by fear. Ordinary activities such as walking alone, travelling after dark, exercising outdoors, or simply existing in public spaces continue to carry emotional risk.

The statistics paint a deeply concerning picture.

Only 6% of women say they feel safe being out after dark, while just 18% feel safe walking alone during the day. Only 8% say they consistently feel safe in public spaces.

The report also found that more than half of women say safety concerns actively restrict their daily activities and personal freedom. Even more concerning is the fact that one in ten women do not consistently feel safe inside their own homes.

These findings reveal that many women are forced to move through society with constant awareness and vigilance. Safety is not simply a background concern. It actively shapes behaviour, movement, emotional wellbeing, confidence, and lifestyle choices.

The report describes this reality as a form of “uncomfortable belonging”, where women simultaneously experience South Africa as both home and hostile.

 

Financial independence has become deeply emotional

One of the strongest themes emerging from the report is the relationship between money and emotional wellbeing.

For many women, financial independence is no longer viewed purely as a career goal or economic milestone. It has become closely tied to freedom, stability, safety, dignity, peace of mind, and personal autonomy.

The report found that 88% of women believe financial independence is essential for happiness. Yet despite this, more than six in ten women say they still lack the financial support or resources needed to pursue their goals.

Financial stress remains one of the biggest emotional burdens affecting women today. More than 75% of respondents identified money as their greatest source of stress, while 64% admitted they often feel guilty spending money on themselves.

The report highlights how many women feel trapped between survival and self-care. Even moments of joy are often mentally negotiated through guilt, budgeting, or sacrifice. Only 4% of women say joy comes easily without planning, calculation, or permission.

This emotional relationship with money reveals how deeply intertwined financial wellbeing has become with women’s sense of identity, emotional freedom, and quality of life.

Women are redefining success on their own terms

One of the most hopeful findings in the report is that women are beginning to reshape the definition of success itself.

Traditional ideas of success have often prioritised achievement, hustle culture, constant productivity, status, and visible career progression. However, many South African women are beginning to reject these narrow definitions.

Instead, women increasingly associate success with emotional peace, balance, stability, rest, wellbeing, boundaries, and sustainable ambition.

The report found that nearly 90% of women say they are actively redefining success to include peace and emotional wellbeing, not just achievement. Meanwhile, 94% believe balance is more valuable than ambition alone.

This shift reflects a growing rejection of burnout culture.

Women are no longer simply asking how to achieve more. Many are now asking whether achievement is worth sacrificing emotional wellbeing, relationships, rest, or mental health.

The findings also show that 90% of women believe softness and gentleness are forms of strength, while 58% strongly agree that “the right to exhale is as important as the drive to achieve.”

Interestingly, only 11% of women identified career advancement as their primary definition of success. Financial security, emotional peace, and a balanced life ranked significantly higher.

These findings suggest that many women are moving away from performance-driven identity and towards something more sustainable and emotionally fulfilling.

Women are calling for emotionally available masculinity

The report also explored how women feel about masculinity, relationships, and emotional support from men.

While many women still value leadership, partnership, and stability, there is increasing frustration with emotional unavailability and rigid gender expectations.

The findings show that only 15.4% of women say the men in their lives are emotionally available, while more than 81% say they wish the men around them were more emotionally expressive and emotionally present.

Additionally, 61.6% of women believe men need to redefine what masculinity means in modern society.

The report describes this as a desire for “a king with a softer crown”, where strength is no longer disconnected from empathy, vulnerability, emotional intelligence, or partnership.

Rather than rejecting masculinity, many women appear to be calling for a healthier and more emotionally balanced version of it.

 

Sisterhood has become a survival system

The report also reveals how strongly women rely on each other for emotional support, encouragement, and resilience.

Many respondents expressed limited trust in institutions creating meaningful change for women. Instead, they believe progress will come through women supporting one another directly.

The findings show that 93% of women believe women should support each other unconditionally, while 97% say they personally show up for other women even when it is difficult.

Additionally, 88% believe meaningful change will come from women themselves rather than institutions, and 86% agree that women are actively building the future they want to see.

This sense of solidarity appears throughout the report as both emotional support and collective resistance. Women are increasingly creating spaces where vulnerability, honesty, encouragement, and emotional safety are normalised rather than hidden.

In many ways, sisterhood has become more than community. It has become survival infrastructure.

 

Women want to be seen as complete human beings

Another important insight emerging from the report is the growing frustration women feel around representation and identity.

Many women say they are tired of being reduced to simplified narratives. They do not want to exist only as symbols of resilience, motherhood, sacrifice, or inspiration. Instead, they want to be recognised as fully human.

That means acknowledging contradiction.

Women can be ambitious and exhausted. Independent and overwhelmed. Strong and emotionally vulnerable. Successful and struggling at the same time.

 

The report particularly highlights how many Black women continue to experience invisibility, marginalisation, and emotional neglect despite being expected to carry extraordinary levels of social and emotional labour.

What women appear to be asking for is not perfection, but honesty. They want systems, workplaces, media, leadership, and communities that recognise the complexity of their lived experiences rather than rewarding silent endurance.

 

The future of empowerment may look quieter than before

Perhaps the most powerful insight from the report is that transformation does not always arrive loudly.

For many South African women, change is happening quietly through boundaries, intentional choices, emotional honesty, community support, financial independence, and the decision to stop glorifying burnout.

This “quiet revolution” is not about abandoning ambition or rejecting resilience entirely. It is about redefining strength in a healthier and more human way.

The report concludes that women are increasingly recognising that their worth is not measured by how much pain they can tolerate or how much responsibility they can carry alone. Instead, many are choosing a version of success that includes rest, peace, emotional safety, and sustainability.

As the report states:

“The data is clear: South African women are ready to lead this transformation.”

The question now is whether society is willing to evolve alongside them.

Download the Full Her and Now 2025 Report

Explore the complete research, statistics, methodology, and insights shaping the future of womanhood in South Africa.

Download the full Her and Now 2025 Report here.

 

Disclaimer

First for Women is a licensed non-life insurer and financial services provider. This article is based on findings from the Her and Now: Insights into the Women of South Africa 2025 Report. The information provided is for informational purposes only. Terms and conditions apply.