CHAPTER 8

WOM E N A N D
TH E I R PR OSP E CTS

It is very common for politicians and other public figures to

talk of South Africas democratic founding vision as that of a
non-racial, non-sexist South Africa. One cannot argue with
the nobility of the phrase and it remains an ideal all of us need
to pursue with vigour.
However, it has been my observation that in many cases mere
lip service is given to the ideal. Partly this is because we are not
willing to confront the difficult questions that will arise out of
a project that truly emancipates South Africas women. We hang
on to much of what keeps women in bondage, largely because we
have such an intimate relationship with it through tradition or
religion or both.
Is it possible to construct a society that is truly free without
confronting this issue which, in my view, is one of our inner
demons? I dont think so. I do, however, think it is possible to
succeed in defeating our own dogmas in order to achieve real
emancipation for women beyond the platitudes we repeat on
public platforms.
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In or around 1985 I overheard a conversation between my grandparents. A cousin of my grandmothers had come to visit her about a
dilemma his family had encountered. His recently married, police officer son had died in the line of duty, leaving a young, childless widow.
The cousin was concerned that she would be lost to the family and so
he had come to seek my grandmothers advice on what to do to retain
her.
The solution the two of them concocted proved to be an eye-opener
for a 10 year old as I then was. They decided to ask her what she
thought of ukungenwa, a process where a deceased mans wife is passed
on to his unmarried brother. Grandmother was tasked with broaching the subject with the widow, which I later learnt ended in disappointment because the young woman rejected the proposal. I am not
certain what she did afterwards but I imagine she remarried in due
course.
In later years when I became aware of gender inequality I remembered the incident and thought a lot about its meaning. Since I never
had a chance to ask my grandmother about her motivation for participating in the scheme (she died five years later, when I was 14), I
can only speculate on their reasons based on what I know about the
meaning of the institution of marriage in my area.
The first reason was that the young widow was now regarded as
part of the family and could not be expected to go away just because
her husband had passed away. She also would possibly be lonely, hence
they felt the need to bring her and the brother-in-law together as a
couple. Of course it is also patently clear that they didnt take too seriously any relationship her brother-in-law might have been involved
in at the time. Perhaps they expected him to liquidate it in favour of a
union with his sister-in-law.
The other possible reason would have been that the family had obviously incurred some considerable expense in this match in the form
of lobola, and to just let a makoti go for free must have felt like a bit of
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a waste. After all, she was there to bear the family children, and since
the person with whom these children would have been born was dead,
it made sense to ask the brother to step in and do the honours. Had
the deceased been survived by children then his brother would have
been expected to be their father, including providing for them as much
as he could.
Whatever their reasons, it is striking now that my grandmother
and her cousin even considered the proposition. Today I do not think
that such a proposal would be considered, even in the environment of
my village.
This is not the only attitude towards women where change can be
observed. Changes range from the deeply profound and spiritual to
the trivial. Women can now be ordained as priests or pastors in some
churches, which was unthinkable just three decades ago. It was also
considered unbecoming for a woman to wear pants, or for a married
woman not to cover her head. These seemingly trivial but still powerful symbols of male control over women through purported tradition
have also transformed significantly.
Traditionalists may baulk at this transformation and consider it
sacrilege but they will not halt the momentum. I am not implying that
there will not be communities or instances where the old habits endure, but merely indicating that it is possible to change things where
previously this might have seemed impossible. But first change needs
movers and a confluence of other social influences to make it possible.
In traditional institutions, in the Christian church, for example,
transformation and evolution come down to a clash between an old
definition of morality, which is largely governed by the power relations at the time morality was defined, and how human experience has
evolved over time. Tradition makes little opportunity for revision so
it tends to want to keep an old ethos in place while everything in the
environment is changing.
An example in this regard, as Ive mentioned, is the evolution of the
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church. Over the centuries the church changed and grew by splitting.
These splits were largely caused by differences over the interpretation
of church doctrine, and over the years several incremental changes
to the churchs approach to certain issues were adopted. These were
informed by science as well as by social and political issues. This evolution continues today.
One issue that has been engaging the churchs mind in modern
times concerns homosexuality. This wasnt a topical issue in the 1970s
and 1980s because back then there was no contradiction: same-sex relationships were an abomination. That position is increasingly being
challenged, with some priests in the US now routinely performing
marriage ceremonies for gay couples. South Africa has seen similar
shifts and although opposition continues, when it comes to this issue
it is really not feasible to expect that the tide will be stemmed or time
rolled back.
Gender issues continue to be mired in conflict. But it is men who
benefit from many of the traditional structures. Even when these no
longer have relevance in todays world, none the less men want to
hold onto them because fundamentally they do not want to acquiesce
to anything that is gradually going to erode their hegemony.
Actually, some of these traditions are quite silly and illogical. I may
be wrong but I find the expectation that a man should open a door for
a woman perplexing, when at the same time it is considered unmanly
for a man to carry her purse or serve her tea. Its a small thing and it
may seem unimportant, but such little courtesies form part of a bigger cultural and traditional repertoire that seeks to define women in
terms of certain roles, often roles that are very diminishing in nature.
For example, even in corporate environments where there is supposed
gender equality, some male colleagues I know still tend to expect any
woman who might be present in a meeting to take the minutes or
serve the beverages.
So what is the lot of women in South Africa today? It is my opinion
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that, taken in the context of modern realities, where there is more

scope to improve the position of women than ever before, we are still
failing miserably at the task. In South Africa women continue to suffer victimisation at all levels of society. There are those who believe
that we should recognise and celebrate the progress we have made so
far but I disagree. Freedom is a definitive state. Being almost free or
on the way to freedom is nothing to celebrate because freedom is the
fundamental right of every human being.
In a different context, Malcolm X explained the principle better
when he said, You dont stick a knife in a mans back nine inches and then
pull it out six inches, and say youre making progress.1
Progress is welcome but nothing short of the full emancipation
should be considered good enough, and an assessment of the strictures that keep women in bondage indicates that the struggle for
women is far from over. Our society remains extremely violent and
unsafe for women in both subjective and objective ways. Women are
oppressed in the home, in their communities, at work and in many
other structures in which they choose to participate including the
political parties that claim to be fighting for their emancipation.

Patriarchy, orthodoxy and traditionalism

Many of the behaviours that define propriety towards and by women have been so entrenched that it is considered heresy to challenge
them. If you do, you risk being accused of going against nature or tradition. The false belief that nature decreed that women and men were
to occupy different positions (which incidentally tend to favour men)
is pervasive and remains deeply rooted. Anyone, especially a woman,
who proposes a re-evaluation or a change in the system is seen as
problematic and wanting to usurp the position of men.
While in urban areas things have moved on somewhat from the
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days when women were regarded as property, in many parts of South
Africa and indeed the world this has not changed. Women are also
not regarded as potential holders of property because men are available for the privilege.
In 2007 a family friend of ours died in a car accident, leaving a
wife and two children. In December of that year his widow was found
stabbed to death near her home. Five suspects, the deceased family
friends siblings and cousins, were arrested. Three were found guilty
of her murder. They had killed her because they did not believe she
should have been the executor of their brothers estate because she
had married into the family.
The extent to which they felt about the matter was demonstrated in
the manner in which the murder was explained at the trial. First they
assaulted the woman and then her sisters-in-law held her down while
their brother, her deceased husbands brother, stabbed her to death.
It was a most sickening crime made more astonishing by the involvement of women who should have defended another womans right to
inherit the property she shared with her late husband.
Theories abound to explain the dominance of the male in gender
power relations. Some are an attempt at a scientific explanation and
others have their foundations in religion.
Among the scientists agnation, which is the tracing of the family
lineage through the male, may have been the original cause. This
theory says that when the time comes for a woman to marry, she
has to leave her own family and join that of her husband where
she has no automatic right to property or inheritance. These are
reserved for the males in the bloodline. Even her sisters-in-law
do not have similar inheritances in their own homes because they
are expected to leave the family when they get married. But, as
American scholar Francis Fukuyama says, this does not explain
why even in matrilineal communities, power and resources are still
controlled by men.2
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Numerous religions entrench the primacy of the male in the development of human society. Christianitys position is that God created a
man called Adam, whom after a while he realised had no help, so he
created Eve.
So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and
all the wild animals. But for Adam no suitable helper was found.
So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and
while he was sleeping, he took one of the mans ribs and then closed
up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from
the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
The man said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my
flesh; she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man.3
Conservative Christians believe that because of this version of how
human beings were created by God there is absolutely no basis to believe that males and females can be equal. The primary reason for the
creation of the woman, it seems, was to help the man. Even in modern
Christian speak this principle remains unshaken, although much has
changed in the direction of equality.
Many of the so-called charismatic churches have redefined the
meaning of help to include allowing the wives of pastors to lead
church services, many of whom do this without a hint of incompetence or doubt. It is also common now for various divisions within
charismatic churches to be led by women, but the traditionalism of
religion still puts the male in an almost automatic leadership role.
What appears universal in countless communities and nations is
that the primary function of the woman is to bear children. Where
the union is not able to produce any children, her position becomes
precarious. I can call to mind many cases of which I personally became
aware, some as recently as 2005, where a woman was blamed for the
failure of a couple to have children, without any scientific basis. Even
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in cases where the man had a very low sperm count, the woman was
still blamed for being barren.
Different communities have their own ways of resolving this quandary. Sometimes this involves the procurement of another wife in order to save the situation, itself an act that disperses any pretentions
of affection for the new woman, although she would generally be seen
as a new favourite. When children cannot be produced out of the
new union either, it is not uncommon for the first wife to be accused
of bewitching the new wife because she was said to be jealous. The
reputation of the man has to be protected at all costs.
In Malawi there is another solution for the childless couple quandary. The broader family will ask the wife secretly if the husband
perhaps has a problem. If she is able to identify the problem (if, for
example, the man has been failing to get an erection), a conspiracy
called calling the hyena is hatched. This involves identifying a suitable male relative who will agree to have sex with the woman, and
then sending the husband away on some business so that the sexual
encounter can take place.
While the woman is consulted about the whole arrangement, usually the conditions are such that she cannot really say no. The general
expectation is that she will agree. If she refuses, then she is likely to
be blamed for not allowing the family bloodline to continue. Either
way, the entire scheme demonstrates a utilitarian approach to women,
and is an example of how practices and traditions premised on this
approach have developed over time.
What I find striking is the high number of instances where women
collaborate in the further enslavement of fellow women in the name
of tradition and social mores. It is very difficult to question practices
people have come to believe are Divine inventions and therefore not
to be questioned by mere mortals. Yet they are not Divine inventions.
Traditions change and social structures evolve over time. Sometimes
the shift is triggered by a change in material conditions; sometimes it
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happens through constant, individual rebellion by those who feel, and

are, oppressed.
In cases where women actively participate in the victimisation of
other women, the central drivers are usually social disintegration and
perverse politics. There is probably no better example of the latter
than the reaction of the African National Congress Womens League
(ANCWL) to the case in November 2005 when President Zuma, then
deputy president of the ANC, was accused of rape. His accuser was
the 31-year-old daughter of a late comrade of his. She was a child of
the struggle as she had grown up in exile and knew Zuma from there.
The case would have presented many difficulties for any organisation in the ANCWLs position. On the one hand it involved a leader it
trusted and on the other the seemingly vulnerable child of a comrade
who had dedicated his life to the struggle. Logic appeared to suggest
that the ANCWL would offer at least some support to the complainant, especially in the context of rampant sexual violence against women in the country. It did no such thing, however. Instead it became
patently clear that it supported the defendant even though it did not
know what the outcome of the case would be.
In fact many woman supporters of Zuma who kept vigil outside the
Johannesburg high court sang songs that proposed violence against
the complainant and even burnt effigies of her. Zuma was later acquitted and the ANCWLs leadership was jubilant. I am not aware of any
prominent ANCWL leaders who offered any support to the complainant and she subsequently went into exile for several years.
This was an astonishingly perverse response on the part of an organisation whose aims and objectives are to struggle for women to be
recognised as equals and to fight all forms of violence against them.4
It appeared that the organisation had decided to ditch its principles in
order to support its candidate for ANC president at all costs.
Ever since then the ANCWL has had repeatedly to obfuscate and effectively abandon one or more of its aims and objectives in an attempt
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to justify its continuing support for problematic male colleagues in
the ANC. The times when it has taken action on the side of women
seem to have been when the culprit did not have the level of clout
Zuma carries in the party as its president. This appears to have been
the case with one Mbulelo Goniwe, at one time the partys chief whip
in the National Assembly. He was expelled from the party for trying
to force himself on a female staff member but was reinstated with an
alleged R1.7m payout a few years later.5
Oddly, the organisations members hardly ever fail to sing outside
court when one of South Africas numerous brutal rape cases goes to
court, especially if the media is going to be there. In essence this has
become its main public programme and little else. There also appears
to be very little visible attempt to reinvigorate the ANCWL beyond
the now cheap and tired slogans it mouths from time to time about
gender equality. The organisation has failed to produce a single document incisively analysing the continued dominance of patriarchy in
South Africa, or recommending what needs to be done by institutions
and individuals to ensure that this is rooted out.
It may point out the ANCs resolution to enforce a 50% gender
quota for its electoral lists but that on its own is problematic. What
has been consistently true over the years is that the members of the
ANC themselves, pretty much like the rest of society, would mostly
prefer males when it comes to electing leaders. This explains why all
provincial chairpersons of the party are males. The only reason some
premiers were women before the 2014 elections is that the ANC had
decided to enforce a 50% quota. This changed in 2014 as seven of the
eight ANC premiers appointed were men. True transformation will
only occur when ordinary members nominate and elect women at the
same or better rate as men.
I would say the ANCWL has become a very pale shadow of its former self but I doubt anyone even remembers any more what it used to
stand for. It is a mere conveyor belt to canvas women to vote for the
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ruling party, and in doing this it only perpetuates the oppression of

women. It is failing dismally when it comes to using its position and
voice to pursue a cohesive programme of action to ensure that institutionalised gender discrimination is removed from society.
Sometimes the presence of women leaders can be misleading, such
as in the Democratic Alliance. Just like the ANC, the DAs rank and
file have a preference for males, although the party is also increasingly
pushing women. It is just of no help that its leader, Helen Zille, chose
an all-male cabinet when she was elected premier of the Western Cape
in 2009. Zille has refused to acknowledge the irrationality or explain
the meaning of this act. In 2014 she did better, appointing two other
women to her provincial cabinet but she still received heavy criticism.
In essence Zille and the DA continue to suggest that in the entire
DA, in the entire Western Cape province, they could not find a single
woman who was capable of taking up a post in Zilles cabinet. Even if
we assume that this is true, the party has very serious questions to ask
and answer about why such a situation developed in the first place and
what it means. So far the party has failed to address these questions
and instead continues to trumpet its belief in the principle of merit
and fitness for purpose noble in an equal society but utterly disingenuous in a gender-unequal country.
Am I advocating a brand of affirmative action where people who are
not suitable are placed in positions of leadership such as in the cabinet? Of course not. The country has suffered for long enough under
the yoke of ministerial and government incompetence over the decades.
What I am saying, however, is that parties cannot ignore the reality of
many brilliant, capable women being suppressed through allocation to
meaningless tasks instead of being placed at the forefront of our politics
and government. If one looks diligently enough, one can always find
them. Either the DA was just not too enthusiastic in their pursuit or
the Western Cape really is a barren enclave for women development,
something in itself that should concern Zille and her colleagues.
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It would be dishonest to place the blame for the continued dominance of patriarchy in South Africa on political parties. It is a symptom of a society that, for various reasons, continues to relegate women
to secondary roles while denying at an individual level that this is
what is happening. Many of these gender roles beliefs are entrenched
in us from an early age, and this is how gender inequality and discrimination is normalised. It will take much more than political party
policy to change this as I will demonstrate when I make proposals for
change later in this chapter.
The attempt to find true freedom for women therefore has to be
centred on a fundamental belief that all human beings are absolutely
equal, not just before the law but in every corner of humanity and
society. We may be different in our talents, strengths and preferences
but fundamentally men and women have the same rights and virtually
the same obligations, the most fundamental of these being to respect
the inherent dignity of every human being regardless of gender.

The wretched position of women today

South Africa may have a progressive, liberal constitution but this
has not led to a significant change in attitudes towards patriarchy
and gender relations. For different reasons many South Africans
do not really believe in the Constitutions founding texts, even if
they say they do, and not only when it comes to gender issues. For
instance, there are those who believe corporal punishment should
be restored to schools despite a court ruling outlawing it as unconstitutional.
It is the same with gender equality. Many of us profess to believe in
the equality of men and women but in our private spaces we say and
do things that are contrary to the Constitution in this respect. Men
who claim to be progressive still expect their female partners and
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other women in their lives to perform certain tasks and carry specific
responsibilities in line with their gender.
Even in the new South Africa gender relations have evolved in
such a way that there is often an unspoken alliance between white
men and black men in the workplace. This is evidenced, for example,
when the first movers for affirmative action appointments have been
predominantly men rather than women. The black woman, just like
old times, has been firmly rooted at the bottom of the ladder with very
little opportunity for climbing up past the men stacked above her.
There is also a culture in South Africa of extreme violence against
women. Many men regularly beat their female partners. Some men
kill their partners and some commit suicide after they have killed
them. The police statistics in this respect are staggering. There were
over 66000 sexual offences recorded in the year between 2012 and
2013.6 All but a negligible number of these were committed by men
against women.
This is separate from the cases where women were assaulted by
their partners either as common assault or with intent to do grievous bodily harm. The SAPS chose not to analyse and present these
statistics at its 2012/2013 annual presentation. Instead it relied on a
World Health Organization report, which itself presents somewhat
vague figures. It is common cause that not all incidents of crime, in
particular gender-related crimes, are reported to the police and are
therefore not recorded.
What we know is that even the reported cases of sexual assault are
too high. The 2012/2013 figure of 66 387 is too high: it gives us a rate
of 182 sexual offences per day countrywide. These are crimes that are
difficult to prevent through conventional police work such as patrols
because they reflect social attitudes and feelings of male entitlement.
On 26 December 2013 I witnessed a crime that would be characterised as common assault in conventional police speak but amounted to
a violent sexual crime in my view. I was with some friends in Port St
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Johns in the Eastern Cape when we witnessed a squabble between two
teenagers, one male and the other female. The nub of the disagreement was that the youngster had bought ciders for the young lady
and her friend the day before. After enjoying the drinks she and her
friends had disappeared, in the words of the highly upset young man.
In essence he was upset because after he had bought the girl drinks
she had not accompanied him to his place for sex at the end of the day.
He now wanted her to pay him back. He started assaulting her when
it became clear that she was either unwilling or unable to give him
any money. A couple of us had to intervene and threaten to beat him
up if he did not leave the young woman alone. He reluctantly agreed
but was so upset by the apparent injustice of our intervention that he
sobbed violently for a while. It was astonishing!
This attitude of men towards women manifests itself at different
levels of society. A great many women stay in abusive relationships
because their economically vulnerable position makes it difficult for
them to make choices that protect and advance their dignity. Instead
they tolerate the abuse so that the violent partner can continue providing for them.
Such choices would not be necessary if women were not so economically marginalised that they bear the brunt of South Africas poverty
and inequality tsunamis in many different ways.
Despite being in the majority, women earn the least income. And
black women earn far less than their white counterparts. The majority of black women earn between R4 800 and R20 000 per annum.
This is in contrast to white men, the majority of whom earn between
R76 000 and R308 000 per annum. The majority of white women earn
between R19 600 and R308 000 per annum.7
These income disparities socially manifest themselves in different
ways. Black women are largely dependent on all the other income
groups for their livelihoods and so they are vulnerable to abuse by
all of them. Black women suffer abuse at the hands of black men who,
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despite not earning much themselves, at least earn far better than
black women.
Unfortunately for black women, the odds truly are heavily stacked
against them. Not only do they have to overcome an unfounded expectation of weakness and incompetence arising out of white racism,
they have to endure this from almost all other races as well. As if this
was not enough, they bear the burden of a combination of African
patriarchal tendencies and the effects of conservative Christianity to
which many black people subscribe. This double-edged sword virtually ensures that the social and economic structures black women have
to overcome in order to achieve individual and collective freedom are
immense.
Those women who have achieved relative freedom, who are professionals with income that enables them to buy property and provide for
themselves, still have many obstacles to overcome. In the workplace
they are not only thought to be inherently less competent than their
male peers, but they also have to overcome challenges such as intense
sexual harassment by male colleagues.
In a contradiction all too familiar in South Africa, the black males
who complain bitterly about racism in the workplace are frequently
the same people who demand sexual favours and harass black female
colleagues at work. They seem oblivious to the double blow they are
delivering since black women are also victims of white racism.
At other times women who manage to succeed are accused of having done so only after a horizontal interview, a euphemism for offering sexual favours in return for job promotion. Such accusations are
made as much by women as they are by men. This is a persistent allegation against a certain female South African radio host, for example,
which, given the extent of her talent, I find hard to believe and have
always put down to jealousy.
This tendency to accuse successful women of having offered sex in
return for recognition at work is the other side of the racist tendency
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that suggests that black people can only get promoted through affirmative action rather than a good professional track record. In both
instances it is a subliminal suggestion that the accusers themselves do
not believe that certain people are capable of achievement unless they
are being looked after.
Interestingly, there is almost never a case where the accuser finds
reason to blame the male who insisted that the woman sleep with
him for a promotion. In deeply patriarchal societies like ours, it is the
woman, it seems, who must always carry the moral burden while the
man gets away with behaviour that ought to be regarded as morally
reprehensible. Of these kinds of attitudes, black women are the biggest victims.
All the structures that keep women, and especially black women,
in such a position that they become easy targets for violence, are a
form of violence themselves. I think of this as structural violence. If
we are to succeed in emancipating women from social and economic
bondage, we cannot do this without looking holistically at the full
set of combined and contradictory values and beliefs that ensure that
women cannot progress beyond mere tokenism. In fact, in my view
the changes that have occurred so far are merely cosmetic. I cannot
think of a reason why it has to take so long to achieve what is so ethical, so human and so utterly logical.
While I have no desire to compare degrees of violence that exist
against women (which in any case may offend victims), the abhorrent
treatment reserved for black lesbians needs to be singled out. Its difficult to find an accurate measure of the hate and venom reserved for
black women who are gay. In addition to corrective gang rapes by
men, who are often from their own communities, when black lesbians
get assaulted or killed this is always done in the most gruesome manner possible.
Consider the case of Duduzile Zozo, a 26-year-old woman from the
East Rand, who was found half-naked, raped and with a toilet brush
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pushed into her vagina in July 2013. She was gay. The suspect was a
neighbour who lived on the street adjacent to hers.8
While the professional and middle-class consciousness is often informed by slow progression of affirmative action implementation in
the corporate sector, where white men and men in general continue to
dominate, this is a symptom of a larger problem that we need to tackle
with the same vigour as that with which we confronted apartheid. If
we are genuine about our dedication to freedom and equality, we cannot be selective.

Breaking free from bondage: A difficult road ahead

To talk of non-sexism has become cheap. Its not that easy and it cant
be accomplished at the stroke of a pen. I dont think we fully appreciate the difficulty, depth and duration of the task of banishing all forms
of gender discrimination from our society. The task is about creating a
new consciousness, a new morality and a new formulation of tradition.
Each of these things in itself will be difficult to achieve. Realistically, it
will take generations for South African women to be totally free, but
that date of emancipation will continue to be delayed if we do not start
on a new foundation now.
The Constitution has laid a good enough basis for us. But the failure
of moral consistency and courage by South African men in positions
of leadership to lead by example is the biggest problem. In failing to
produce works that begin to break down or challenge oppressive stereotypes about women, their championing of women is hollow. Men in
influential positions need continuously to speak out against all forms
of oppression, not in the usual manner that sings the usual slogans,
but one that demonstrates deep and heartfelt insight into the challenges and struggles of women. An example in this regard would be
to speak against the practice by powerful men in business and politics
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of treating women as commodities that are exploited to fulfil the vices
of being in positions of power.
At the foundation of our efforts is a need to define what we mean by
equality and justice. First we need to make clear that the equality between sexes, at the level of rights, is absolute and non-negotiable. Female
children must have exactly the same opportunities and entitlements as
male children. This means we must begin to regard the tradition of bestowing genealogical inheritance on male children only as a heresy.
As I illustrated in the example about the family friend who left his
estate to his widow, black women in particular are still deprived of
their birthright simply because they are women, regardless of what
the Constitution says. Most South Africans do not have the money to
pursue litigation. Many do not even know that they can appeal to the
courts for relief.
Changing a tradition of inheritance is going to be very difficult. For
Xhosa people it will mean asking them to change their understanding
of inkulu, the great heir. This is reserved for the male child. The firstborn girl is called umafungwashe, the one by whom all others swear.
For now it is unthinkable that this tradition may be anything but what
it already is, but an elephant can only be eaten in small portions.
The clash between our modern Constitution and tradition became
apparent in the last days of the late former President Mandela. His
daughter Makaziwe clashed with his grandson, Mandla, by his late
son and Makaziwes brother. The dispute arose after it became known
that Mandla, chief of Mvezo and heir to the Mandela chieftaincy, had
removed the remains of his father and other family members from
Qunu village to Mvezo village where he lived.
The minute details of the case are beside the point, suffice to say
that the young chief s assertion was that as heir and chief, he was
entitled to take decisions concerning his own father and the other
members of his family. His aunt, Makaziwe, begged to differ and took
him to court and won.
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Had we lived in a different society, the one I believe is possible and

must be pursued, being male would not automatically have entitled
Mandla to being a chief. Secondly, he would not be able to easily make
the claim, as he did in late 2013 while addressing a press conference,
that his aunt was no longer a full member of the family because she
was married to another.
The starting point in changing this way of thinking is to suggest
that those who have an inheritance to bestow do this on a basis other
than gender. In other words, we should make it clear to our children
from an early age that being a male accords them no special entitlements in the home, not ever. This must begin with the household
chores they are asked to perform and by not apportioning these on a
basis of gender stereotypes, which is the bedrock of sexism and other
forms of gender dominance and discrimination.
The second important truth to absorb is to admit that while gender discrimination and misogyny know no race, it is black women
who suffer the most. Among other forms of discrimination, they are
victims of tradition, religious conservatism and white racism. The experience of discrimination and oppression by black women is mostly
from treatment and violence meted out to them by black men. So it
is black men in particular who need to transform their own attitudes,
towards themselves first and then towards women.
This means no longer believing, like most men tend to believe anyway, that they occupy a genetically superior position because they are
men. Women need to be accepted as intelligent and capable as everyone else. The notions of superiority that so many men hold on to are
merely ridiculous superstition.
In order to achieve the dubious notion of political correctness, there
are many who claim that African traditions are already sufficiently
respectful of women. This is only partly true. Like any other society
there is a modicum of respect for women but it is always superseded
by the higher position of the male in the social pecking order. In the
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case of some local cultures, until recently it was acceptable to abduct
women for forced marriage, the practice of ukuthwala I have talked
about elsewhere. There is absolutely nothing respectful about that
practice. Instead the opposite is true.
Being honest with ourselves, then, and working hard to remove
those aspects of our cultures that keep women in bondage are going
to be extremely difficult but it is an imperative for which no effort
should be spared.
As I have said elsewhere in this book, I believe the schooling system
is the ideal place to deal with such matters in a neutral environment.
It is unrealistic to expect these things to be taught in every home, at
the same time and with the same vigour, but if they fell under Life
Skills, a subject all learners have to take at school over several years,
significant progress could be made.
The third intervention is to further change the ethos of the criminal justice system to cater for the vulnerable position of women. The
time has come for the government to create special courts to deal with
crimes against women. It is unconscionable that rape and other similar cases have to spend years in the courts when the entire experience
of rape and having to relive the memory is very difficult for women.
Many women also have to endure the discomfort of being in the same
community as their abusers.
It is generally acknowledged that rape cases are not always reported. This is partly because the victims do not want to go through
the second trauma of police officers who treat them with insensitivity
and sometimes show no enthusiasm to even record the case. In cases
where women are raped by their partners, there are police officers
who refuse to regard this as rape. Special units and courts would go a
long way towards dealing with this problem, which has reached epidemic proportions, something it seems we refuse to acknowledge.
The fourth intervention concerns the economic empowerment of
women, especially rural women. The impact of economic exclusion
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makes women particularly vulnerable to emotional abuse, emanating

from their complete dependence on men for sustenance. While it does
not guarantee that women will be free from the effect of discrimination in the home, an institutionalised focus on improving the schooling and health success of the girl child will, in the long term, result
in women clawing their way into a more assertive position in society
than they enjoy now.
Affirmative action measures designed to achieve women empowerment are in place but these are insufficient and address only the realities of those women who are part of the formal economy. There are
millions of women and girls in rural areas who simply do not have the
opportunity to join the formal economy, so development initiatives
must take this into account. Specific instruments and targets for such
vulnerable women need to be created.

Conclusion
I am of the view that we need to understand women emancipation as
a fundamental political issue that is inextricably attached to the freedom struggle. Clearly, since women have continued to be oppressed,
we cannot legitimately claim that full political freedom has been realised for them.
True freedom is realised when no individual is restrained from enjoying the rights of citizenship, accessing opportunities to develop
and grow, and to be free from the fear of violence, the anxiety of being
treated like a second-class citizen and the other terrible realities that
women face.
There is a tendency to call those who advocate women emancipation feminists. I am not sure that this label should be used as wantonly as I think it is. There is a common humanity that unites us, and
demanding equal rights, treatment and opportunities for women is a
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fundamental act of justice nothing less, nothing more. It should not
lead to a labelling that makes womens rights a special case.
Until women are regarded simply as human beings, the freedom
struggle is not over.

Notes
1
2
3
4
5

West, C., 1993. Race Matters. Beacon Press, Massachusetts, p.35.

Fukuyama, F., 2011. The Origins of Political Order. Profile Books, London, p.57.
The Bible (NIV). Genesis 1, verses 1923.
Aims and Objectives of the ANCWL, Rule 2.9.
www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/sex-pest-goniwe-gets-r1-7m-fromanc-1.1606314#.Utn8nxD8LIU (accessed 16 March 2014).
6 SAPS crime statistics presentation, slide 28, www.saps.gov.za/statistics/reports/
crimestats/2013/downloads/crime_statistics.presentation.pdf (accessed 16 March
2014).
7 Statistician Generals presentation of 2011 census, slides 3037, www.statssagov.
co.za/Census2011/Products/SGPresentation.pdf (accessed 16 March 2014).
8 www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/murder-accused-was-slain-lesbian-sneighbour-1.1595486#.UtpYIRD8LIU (accessed 16 March 2014).

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