#RUReferenceList: 8 years later

April is weird. 8 years ago, I was having one of the worst experiences of my life. Today, I’m not being terrorised and gaslit by my university’s administration, nor having my faith in justice for sexual violence shattered. I’m in just in bed, resting.

I think there’s a survivor’s guilt in being here, or at least a desire to not abandon 2016-me, 2016-us. I try to let 2016-me know that I won’t abandon her or her cause, while also giving her the life she fought for/was crushed for fighting for.

I’m explaining to both of us that we must enjoy what can be enjoyed and that we don’t have to always return to the wound. The wound will not heal, but it doesn’t have to rule over us forever. Every one of us deserves to move on. Joy is not abandonment.

Mary Oliver advises, “If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be.”

We know the prolonged destruction that was #RhodesWar so intimately, we should get to know joy with equal fluency.

About Dom aka Dominique McFall

This post is celebration of Dom McFall, on the event of their BA (Hons) graduation part . While this academic achievement is an incredible feat of smarts, hard work and resilience, even more worthy of praise is Dom’s character, hereby described by some of the people who know her best:

Viv Descroizilles said:

“Who is Dom to me? That’s a pretty loaded question because she’s so much more than my best friend. Dom is my chosen family; she’s seen and comforted me at my lowest, she’s remained a friend through the rocky patches of uncertainty, and she’s been the first to celebrate with me when life is good. Dom is the most solid, certain friend I’ve ever had because when you’re lucky enough to be chosen as her friend, she’s with you through the bad and the good.
Dom is one of the kindest, warmest people I have ever known. When I think of her, I think of the best type of motherly energy; she makes all those in her circle feel safe, seen, and unconditionally loved. Whether you are a colleague, an acquaintance, a partner, or a friend, Dom will take the time and effort to make you comfortable in her space, no matter how that looks for you.

But the thing about Dom that I love most is her ability to laugh at herself. She has a brilliant sense of humour- when she’s being the clumsy mess that she is and trips over nothing or slips on a perfectly normal floor, she is with me, laughing until we cry, and maybe only five minutes later will she mention that that was actually quite painful. She lets me tease her mercilessly, and doesn’t hold back on the close-to-home jabs herself, because that is our love language. In our friendship, no slip of the tongue, or plainly stupid comment, goes ignored- we will remember forever and it will become an inside joke between us.

Our friendship runs on cups of tea when there just aren’t words to comfort the other, spontaneous adventures to the sea, asking for and receiving hugs whenever you need them, late night hysterics when life is just so shit that laughing is the only option, mid-workday dance sessions to “Frequent Letdown” by the Illuminati Hotties or “Shit!” by Bo Burnham when the stress levels are just too high, and heartfelt context conversations, recorded so we can always remember how special we are to each other.
Dom is my closest friend, the surrogate mom of my plants, my on-again off-again housemate, and my family. In the words of her favourite poet, Andrea Gibson, she is my angel of the get-through and I am hers.”

Alex Sutherland said:

“I got to know Dom as a student at Rhodes –  as a committed, super bright, fun person who fought for what was just. When we moved to Cape Town, we contacted her to help take care of our boys and she became a loved addition to our family structure. My boys adore Dom; and they are excellent judges of character. She became a caring, creative, fun companion to Jasper and Gabriel. They love stories and reading and so, as we all know does Dom. Gabriel’s extra needs were never an obstacle to the innovative games and activities she did with the boys – including the yearly christmas biscuit decoration festivities.  Another new member of our family who can spot an extra special person is our dog Sparkles. Sparkles took one look at Dom and melted immediately in utter adoration. It was quite extraordinary!

Nowadays we don’t see Dom as often as we would like. I am filled with awe at her steadfast ‘getting her shit together’ attitude. This degree is part of that – an enormous enormous achievement for anyone – but especially amidst the vile circumstances that lead her to this point. A big fat finger to those big conservative ‘liberal’ institutions that deserve to crumble into obscurity.  Dom has started to build a career, got a degree, and is taking the next big leap by living overseas. She is living her life with integrity and joy. She is a role model for my children. Work hard, have fun, be kind, live life with fierce grace. That is Dominique. We love you Dom – fly fly fly.” 

Sean Wentzel said:

“At this stage, both our faces show up next to most of the songs in our Spotify blend (which is what I’m listening to as I’m writing this). And I know whether they’ll like something without needing to ask. I now introduce everyone to Andrea Gibson. When I told Dom I was struggling to understand the context of all the stuff in their life they were telling me about, they made video interviews with their friends and sent them to me. I think I’ve told them every interesting thing that has happened to me in the last six months, and the collected voice notes we’ve exchanged would make for a thrilling radio drama.

They empathize with joy and love (it’s very comforting to have your positive emotions reflected back at you). Perhaps their warm blood is what gives them such unnatural cold tolerance? They have a kind of tenacity that manifests in plans and lots and lots of questions, which leaves me absolutely certain there is an actual human at their core, and which makes me excited to know them.”

Rachel Swartz said: 

“I met Dom while looking for a place to live in Cape Town. While I didn’t end up moving in to her home, being her friend made Cape Town feel like home to me. 

Once, Dom, our friend Jess and I went camping in Beverlac. To say Dom organized the trip would be an understatement, she had a full spreadsheet of what we needed. I’m talking a color coordinated spreadsheet. She wanted to make sure we had everything we needed and we all felt like we had a part to play. I’m from the states and told Dom I wanted to make American pancakes for breakfast one morning. When we arrived at the camp I discovered she had brought a weighed and portioned out recipe for American pancakes for us to cook on the fire. To live in another country away from everything you know and love is scary, but when you find people that want to see you and experience part of where you come from is very special. This is what I mean when I say Dom makes you feel like you’re home.

Dom is one of those people who is gifted in the art of gathering. She knows how to bring people in her life together and create space for everyone to feel special and heard. It doesn’t matter what we’re doing, whether it’s a spontaneous splash in the tidal pool or an elaborate dinner, she has the special kind of light that when she shines it on you, you leave  feeling lighter. In a world that is so heavy and set in its own track, I feel so grateful to know her.”

Gorata Chengeta said:

Dom is one of the most intentional and sensitive friends I have. She makes lovely food, has a great dry sense of humour and is the most admirable cat parent, but this is just scratching the surface of who they are. It’s difficult to put our connection into words or describe the impact Dom’s had in my life. The words “affirming” and “caring” cannot give the full picture of what it’s like to have someone in your life who provides a safe space for your growth, connection and new depths of vulnerability. Knowing Dom has been transformative and taught me loads. I’ve learned that I can be safe enough to be my fullest self in a relationship. When I need to quieten my inner critic, I learn from how Dom treats me. Having become friends during some really painful years, it feels like we have really grown up together. In the face of some of the cruelest circumstances, Dom teaches me that joy must always be pursued. There are alpacas, seals and whales to be seen. There are sunsets and sunrises to chase. There are rock pools to be swum in. There is plenty of ice-cream to be enjoyed. And of course, there is poetry to be shared (both Andrea Gibson’s and our own).

Most admirably, Dom lives courageously. When I was younger, I might’ve thought courage was what was seen in movies: dramatic action-packed displays of risk . Through Dom, I know that courage is finding the will to create a beautiful life, to care for people and to act with integrity as instinct. Courage is to be, like Dom, insistent on adventure and feeling deeply, even amidst your fear and uncertainty.”

Dr Lynda said:

“I first met Dominique in 2017, [when] she had to take English 2 and English 3 simultaneously. Of course I was worried about this, but she assured me that she would manage the workload.   Dominique always came to class prepared, she enjoyed Chick Lit because it allowed her to express her opinions and to think through her ideas on feminism.  In 2019, I had the opportunity to see Dominique again when she presented a paper at Afems Conference at Wits Univeristy.  I will always remember Dominique for her enthusiasm, her zeal for life and her work ethic.”

Slice of Life: Is today a cake?

cn: grief and loss

At the end of April, a month into South Africa’s lockdown, I read a beautiful essay by Shubnum Khan titled “Is today a day? But those days are gone …”. Since that ordinaryI have been clinging gently to Shubnum’s words over the past few months.”Is today a day?” has been floating in and out of my mind as I have drifted between anxiety, grief and semblances of stability.

It is hard to write a story when you don’t even know if it matters anymore. Do books matter when loved ones are dying? When people are losing jobs? When people are starving? When countries are crumbling? How to create a world when your own one is crashing? Will September even come? Is today a day?

Shubnum Khan, : Is today a day? But those days are gone …”

As I write this, I’m somewhere in between April and September. In between the ebb and flow of functionality and exhaustion, something has pulled me here. I have been meaning to write for weeks. But like the recent days, sometimes it was unclear if I would get to the end of it.

Depending on how you use social media, you might have seen those hyper-realistic cake videos? If you didn’t, here you go:

Basically, there is a very skilled set of people who have managed to make cakes that look like other objects. And they’re being sliced all over the Internet. I have been thinking about these cakes a lot and I knew I would have to eventually write about them. So here we are.

A tale of two photos

This story is about the cakes, but it starts with two photographs of one of my friends. In the first photograph, she is wearing an infamous baby pink jersey that has dubious origins. This jersey defies ownership. It belongs to all of us and none of us at once. It has gracefully travelled in my friend group from person to person, from Makhanda to Johannesburg, and now it makes a temporary(?) home in a giant city only one of us has been to.

Seeing that that picture reminded me of an indistinct time in 2017 when I went to my friend’s house, sat on her couch and was offered this jersey when I started feeling cold. I am looking out the glass door, overlooking the pool as people walk in and out. Amidst all our chatter, Noname’s Tiny Desk Concert is playing in the background. For all I know, this is like 5 memories which have coalesced into one. 2017 was a long time ago, indeed. But with that, what is still true is the texture of the khanga she has draped over the couch I am sitting on and the lace rib stitching of this jersey that comforts me.

A few days after seeing the first photo, I notice my friend has posted again. I swipe to see her in what looks like a very nice park in the giant city. She looks happy. In these photos, she is wearing a mustard-yellow linen skirt. (Not that I had anywhere to go, but) I am stopped in my tracks; struck equally by how beautiful the skirt is and how unfamiliar it is. The colour is so rich and deep and bright: I’m really a big fan. And as I am consumed by how perfect I think this skirt is, it’s unfamiliarity undoes me almost immediately. I’ve known her for years and never seen it before so it must be new. One minute I am enthralled by the skirt’s design, the next minute, I am knocked out and tearful. It feels silly but it is heavy. The skirt has a whole origin story I don’t know: it is a stranger. And despite all the technology available to us, my friend suddenly feels very, very far away.

I’ve had variations of this kind of feeling often in the past few weeks. While I long for connection to my people and normally like seeing what their day looks like, lately, there is nothing that makes a friend seem further away than a photograph. I feel so deeply that they are not with me. Even though there is still verbal connection, through phone-calls and whatsapps, my body is asking where everyone went. Why is it summer in this person’s picture? I’m so cold here. How come the time is not the same everywhere in the world? How come even when our time is the same, the woman I love is looking at the sunset, while I am beneath the night sky? I know how all of it works, but in this time, it has become so jarring and anything I know no longer has the power to comfort me.

*

In more precedented times, I might have been more entertained by the cakes, but instead, it’s been a haunting. As is clear from the popularity of the cake memes, we don’t know if we can trust that things-we-assume-are-just-things are not cakes anymore. And of course, having to have this new suspicion about cakes broadly speaks to recalibrating: to wrapping our heads around the numerous things that now signify danger. Breathing around others now tops the list.

When the cakes first started haunting me, I explained to another friend how this trend had taken over social media. I was hoping for some solidarity in my horror but they casually replied, “Well, if someone were to cut into a roast chicken and then it turned out to be a cake, I would be pretty happy, because I really like cake!”. They’re vegetarian.

So, maybe, I think, the cakes have chosen to torment only me. Nonetheless, I took it as a reminder that we are all responding to this (CAKE!?) situation from our own vantage points and no pandemic experience will be the same. I know there are many people who struggle with the fact that, in a time where so much breathtakingly awful things are happening, they might personally having a good year. It’s jarring to make sense of your own joy if the world as most know it is crumbling.

Anchor me

My obsession with these cakes is an obsession with anchors. Perhaps for Shubnum, the day is an anchor in her life, and if the day is not the day, where does that leave everyone? For me, I guess I was more invested in cakes-being-cakes than I would’ve ever guessed. I think it’s funny that it’s cakes that have taken on such a deep meaning for me in this time. Ultimately though, my discomfort about slicing into a can of tomato soup is probably a form of anticipatory grief. As many of those helpful early-pandemic articles stated, the situation we’re in is full of unknowns and living with that level of uncertainty can be overwhelming.

There’s a lot of change and that can be unsettling. Physical touch is not the girl it used to be. Hugs, for those who liked them, are now accompanied by hesitation. Perhaps for me, the crisis is in part, a crisis of finding meanings that might still make sense in the middle of (what I hope is a) transitioning world.

*

There is grief when meanings and days change before you are ready.

*

I am happy for my friend’s new skirt. I am happy for my lover who enjoys the sunset at 10pm. And my body wants to know when my beloveds will be back.

I miss my family. I miss my friends. I miss when hugs were just hugs. I miss the baby pink jersey.

I miss when photographs of loved ones didn’t make me wonder – sad – about what the future might not have. And I miss the times when I could be confident – arrogant, even – that something was definitely not a cake.

Esther Ramani responds to “In conversation with Bettie, a ‘victorious’ rape survivor”

Esther Ramani's response to a piece written by Luzuko Jacobs, UCKAR's Communications director. Luzuko's piece appeared in UCKAR's Toplist and also in Grocott's Mail and was titled  “In conversation with Bettie, a ‘victorious’ rape survivor” (Grocott’s Mail, September 29, 2017, page 11 & available online here). I've reproduced Ramani's response here as it was previously unpublished:

Do the scare quotes around the word ‘victorious’ in the title of Luzuko Jacob’s story about Bettie make it more palatable? It does show that the writer is sensitive to the irony of calling any rape survivor ‘victorious.’ But is this enough?

Is there even such a thing as victory for someone who has been violently abused? I imagine that the trigger warning accompanying this story recognizes the power of a single act of dehumanization to relentlessly haunt you down the dark tunnels of your mind. To call any rape survivor ‘victorious’ is the worst kind of ‘rape porn,’ designed to lull you into a feeling of safety that if you only report your rape, all will be well and you can get on with your life!

But what irks me, is that this story, written in the most cliched and lurid prose, does not address the issue of why rape occurs at all. It makes it seem that the perpetrator has a character flaw that made him unable to control his sexual urges and spiked her drink, and that the survivor is a woman with trust and faith in a system that will never fail her, if she only reports her rape to the correct authorities!

It makes Bettie into a revengeful young woman who was bent on getting ‘the little bugger.’ By the way, which rape survivor would call her rapist ‘the little bugger’?

The problem with this article is that it assumes, and deludes readers into assuming, that UCKAR has all the systems in place to deal with rape; that the disciplinary processes at UCKAR are clear and transparently implemented, that all rapists will be caught and convicted. What is preventing rapists from being convicted, the article tells us, is the silence of the victims/survivors! If only they would report their rapes, identify their rapists, be prepared to confront the perpetrator in a university disciplinary process, then justice will be done! It seems to me that this story is more about the victory of UCKAR than about Bettie! It does nothing to address the issue of why women do not report rape and sexual abuse.

Bettie’s advice to potential rape victims/survivors is three-fold: Trust that the university is behind you; don’t be naive and finally, look after yourself!

Even if UCKAR had all the necessary systems in place, the approach to rape as a private/individual matter between two people, fails to take into account the systemic forces at play that make rape a crime of power and not one of just desire and sexuality. It fails to address the entrenchment of patriarchy in our societies, of social and economic injustices that deny people their humanity, it fails to reflect on what institutions like UCKAR can do to foreground rape culture as a context in which people with power feel entitled to abuse people less powerful than they.

What forms of gendered everyday practices make rape happen? What social activities and leisure time engagements create and foster a rape culture? What kinds of conversations need to happen to target rape culture? In what spaces? What views of masculinity encourage more humane relations between people?

These and other pressing issues have been raised time and time again by various groups of academics and students at UCKAR. As a result largely of the RU Reference list protests in 2016, the University supported the setting up of a Sexual Violence Task Team, (SVTT) which involved voluntary weekly meetings between almost 50 staff and students, and resulted in a report which was presented to UCKAR management in December 2016. The approach of the report was underpinned by ideas of social justice, restorative and reparative justice and the recommendations, drawing also from the Sexual Harassment Policies of other institutions, are far-ranging and far-reaching. It includes curriculum changes that might address gender and power, the establishment of a Sexual Harassment Office under a more general Harassment Office, overseen by the Vice Chancellor. To this date, nine months down the line, there is no information from Senior management about whether the SVTT report will be taken seriously, when and how it will be implemented!

In the meantime, three women who were part of the RU reference list 2016 protest continue under the force of an interdict, sexual abuse continues to happen, and an alleged rapist has taken UCKAR to court for his exclusion from the university. It seems that Bettie’s peace of mind, and UCKAR’s, may be very short-lived indeed.

Esther Ramani

Esther Ramani is a Professor of Language Studies, multilingualism activist, feminist activist & gardener.

What is intersectionality?

I first came across the word ‘intersectionality’ a few years ago. At the time, I understood it loosely to be “the idea that people have different oppressions and also, different privileges”.

Firstly, Kimberle Crenshaw came up with intersectionality in 1989. A Black woman did that. But as these things go, I only heard about Crenshaw a while after I first came across the word. I’m just putting this out there because Black womens’ genius is often ignored (and because it hurts my feminist soul that we can talk about intersectionality without saying her name).

Secondly, and more to the point, intersectionality is huge in feminism now. Fellow feminists are defining themselves as intersectional, calling for intersectional approaches and critiquing things for not being intersectional enough. “Intersectional feminism” has become our beacon of hope: the thing that will lead us (as Black Africans) away from feminisms that don’t fit.  But what does intersectional feminism even mean?

The word ‘intersectionality’ is used so often that it’s getting vague: it seems like it has no limitations. With such frequent use, it loses its shape and its grit. As it has become more popular, people have started using intersectionality in a way which seems to be for everyone’s benefit. But best believe Kimberle Crenshaw was talking about Black women. In Mapping the Margins, the article she wrote explaining intersectionality in 1993, Crenshaw was very specific.

The fact that everyone can now cash in on ‘intersectionality’ heavily suggests that it has been stolen and appropriated. This is not to say that only Black women can talk about intersectionality or that it can’t apply to other forms of oppression. I just want to reflect on where it came from.

In  Mapping the Margins,  Crenshaw wrote about how both feminist and anti-racism movements failed to address issues specific to Black women. She noted:

Racism as it is experienced by Black men tends to determine the parameters of antiracist strategies, just as sexism experienced by White women tends to ground the women’s movement.

Crenshaw added that dealing with one oppression at at time fails to truly free people because (to paraphrase Lorde) we don’t live single-issue lives. Something that frees a white women won’t free a Black woman; that’s why feminism has been criticized so much by Black women.

Mapping the Margins is about how not recognizing social differences within movements leaves some people out in the cold. For Crenshaw, it is necessary to assert the differences that are erased, to call a spade a spade basically, so that this exclusion doesn’t happen within our liberation movements.

With that, I think intersectionality should always mean taking the focus away from privileged voices and listening to people who are oppressed. This becomes increasingly important as recently, I’ve been finding that even within ‘intersectional’ spaces and intersectional feminism, some people use intersectionality to protect their privilege.

I’m uncomfortable with people using intersectionality as a buzzword so often that it no longer prioritizes marginalized groups. I’m uncomfortable with people using intersectionality to avoid taking responsibility for privilege. You shouldn’t be able to use intersectionality as a shield if you’re being oppressive. Put some respek on Crenshaw’s concept.

If you’re white and queer, you’re never not white. If you’re black and upper middle class, you’re never not middle-class. If you’re cisgender and queer, you’re never not cisgender. And so on. Facing a particular oppression doesn’t cancel out having a privilege and we need to constantly take responsibility for what having privilege does for us.

Privilege amplifies your voice all the time. So your whiteness, your wealth, your physical abilities, your heterosexuality etc. all speak louder than you imagine. For that reason, intersectionality, to me, means that you are aware of when you speak and what your voice means in different contexts. You ask: Is this conversation about me? Do I need to speak? Will this conversation benefit from my contribution? Am I only responding right now because I’m uncomfortable with having my privilege interrogated?*

Crenshaw ends off saying:

The most one could expect is that we will dare to speak against internal exclusions and marginalizations…Through an awareness of intersectionality, we can better acknowledge the differences among us and negotiate the means by which these differences will find expression in constructing group politics.

Coming together is vital for our liberation. But coming together is also a collision, where we have to confront our complicity in the systems that oppress others. Perhaps, in colliding, we can use intersectionality to free ourselves from practices that harm others.

*I still think we need a better way of talking to each other about privilege within feminism. I’m still thinking about whether or not calling people out works. I haven’t figured it out yet.

**Special thanks to everybody who helps me figure this stuff out, particularly Dlova & Nomoyi (2016).

Chapter 2.12: the campaign against rape culture

By Mishka Wazar, for Activate, 13 April 2016

On 11th April 2016 an awareness campaign consisting of posters relating to rape culture was launched. The posters are meant to raise awareness of the policies regarding sexual assault and rape on campus, and the prevailing attitudes of management towards rape and sexual assault victims. Campus Protection Unit (CPU) removed the posters the morning after they were put up but the SRC succeeded in reposting them around the Library and Kaif area.

The statements on the posters are from Rhodes students, management and prosecutors. The SRC-endorsed posters form the first chapter in the Unashamed movement also currently occurring at Stellenbosch University. Stellenbosch began a poster campaign the previous night but the posters were removed and no other university appears to be taking part in the movement so far.

Members of the movement state that management is accountable for perpetuating rape culture at Rhodes, and these discriminatory and victim-shaming policies must change. Dr Mabizela, along with the Director of the Library Ujala Satgoor, spent the morning discussing the posters and the movement and had a largely positive reaction to the movement itself. The quotes by Rhodes management will also be investigated.

Dr Colleen Vassiliou stated that the Director of Student Affairs office is offering support and advocating for this work. There will also be a warden’s discussion to discuss these policies. Rhodes University management has also had various meetings with student bodies to discuss this.

The reactions of the student body to the posters have ranged from curious to outraged and an impact has been made on social media with the hashtag #Chapter212. Quotes like “management is more offended by our posters violating the rules than rapists violating our bodies” and “We’re tired of people only paying lip service to rape culture while perpetuating it” were among some of the responses given by those present.

 #Chapter212 which refers to the South African Constitution chapter regarding safety and dignity of the student body.

Freedom and security of the person

12. (1) Everyone has the right to freedom and security of the person, which includes the right—

(a) not to be deprived of freedom arbitrarily or without just cause;
(b) not to be detained without trial;
(c) to be free from all forms of violence from either public or private sources;
(d) not to be tortured in any way;
and (e) not to be treated or punished in a cruel, inhuman or degrading way.

(2) Everyone has the right to bodily and psychological integrity, which includes the right—
(a) to make decisions concerning reproduction;
(b) to security in and control over their body; and
(c) not to be subjected to medical or scientific experiments without their informed consent.

Where leaders learn what, exactly?

By Grace Moyo

Originally published in Oppidan Press, 11 March 2015
In her first year in 2012, a girl I know was pushed against a wall by a then Centenary House Committee member as he tried to come onto her even as she said “no”. In 2013, she was sexually assaulted in Jan Smuts House. In 2014, a then Graham House sub-warden told her she should have texted him when she was drunk because he would have “loved to take advantage of a girl like [her]”. And in 2015, the first person she spoke to about it, a former SRC member, over-stepped her personal space boundaries and made her feel physically un- comfortable and vulnerable. Four incidents of harassment and assault. Four strokes of pure bad luck. Four different leaders. 

During my time at Rhodes, and more particularly, my time in various leadership structures at this institution, I have been appalled by some of the things I have borne witness to. From head students, to sub-wardens, to society chairs, to members of the SRC – there are sexist statements callously being thrown around and incorrigible behaviour being displayed. 

This is supposed to be the institution “where leaders learn” and yet these are some of the lead- ers coming through the system. We are getting something very wrong. I use the word ‘we’ very inclusively because, despite the fact that there are many commendable students in leadership posi- tions, it is our collective responsibility to reshape the ideals of the bad ones. When we fail to do this, we fail each other and we fail this community that we lead. 

There is something very wrong with the fact that the scenarios described above are neither uncommon nor isolated. What is even worse is the fact that many of these students never face any kind of consequence for their actions, be it through peer reprimanding or through a formal university procedure. 

There is something wrong with the fact that a university-appointed sub-warden can poke fun at the Bring Back Our Girls campaign on Facebook, asking, “What if the girls don’t want to come back?” There is something wrong with the fact that a peer-elected head student can publicly state that “women cannot handle the equality they ask for”. Somehow both of these people are still allowed to retain their leadership positions. There is something wrong with the fact that when I, and countless others, call this behaviour out, we are dismissed as “angry feminists”. Yes, maybe I am an angry feminist, but I am not angry at nothing. 

I am angry at the fact that I have come across so-called student ‘leaders’, inside and outside this university, that speak of and treat women in the most abominable ways. I am angry at the fact that there are men that will look at women’s bodies longer than they look at their faces, that my intel- ligence is sometimes questioned because I am female, and that every person I have told this to does not believe that being female has anything to do with it. 

I am angry at the fact that I, and countless other women, are objectified and harassed so fre- quently. I am angry at the fact that I have people roll their eyes at me when I call a man out for saying something sexist. I am angry at inequality. I am angry at injustice. But perhaps I am most angry about the fact that there are people that re- fuse to even acknowledge that these things exist. 

This behaviour is deplorable in general, but even more so when it is being exhibited by people who are selected and elected to lead this institu- tion. When you consider that power dynamics, first year impressionability and a culture of apathy are also active factors, you have a toxic environment that is detrimental to us all. 

At some point we need to call our leaders to task. We need to stop shying away from the dif- ficult conversations and unpopular statements. We need to find our agency and put an end to the pervasive behaviour and way of thinking that is destroying the lives of far too many young women in our immediate environment. 

We need to do all this because, until we proactively seek to eliminate the bad fruit, we are allowing mediocrity to be our standard and chauvinistic bigotry to lead us. 

Malika’s post

* I cannot make a link to Malaika’s actual post on Facebook so I have copied it onto my blog.

“It is sad that Dr Badat is leaving us. We had one person in this institution who was committed to fighting against the White racism that Black students are subjected to; racism that White students pretend does not exist and which the management treats as a non-issue. Rhodes is an exclusive, anti-Black institution that caters largely for the needs of White students and the Black upper middle-class. It is characterised by the most brutal White arrogance that has permeated to a point that it has now been institutionalised. And they will deny it and call me a racist, as they always have. They will portray themselves as victims of this “racist” Black student that is me, because it is typical for the racist White student population of Rhodes to downplay the impacts of racism, and to treat anyone who raises the subject like some lunatic. I ran for SRC in 2012, and was daily accused of being a racist with regressive politics. My only crime was to be honest about a reality which only Black students know. I was attacked on a daily basis, all because I had dared to make people feel uncomfortable by rattling their insulated ivory tower of White supremacy.

I went to Dr Badat’s office in tears, telling him about my frustrations. He did not agree with my sentiments, but he at least listened to me, he at least allowed me to state my case. I was left confident that at least someone in the management was committed to championing the cause of genuine racial transformation, because any person who allows Black people to define their own struggles is authentically progressive. So many of these White people want to define our conditions, and even have the audacity to suggest to us that they have a remedy for us. At worst, we are dismissed for being alarmists. Today, I cannot help but think that a new era has dawned upon us: the victory of White right-wing elements. Weep, Black working class child, you’re about to drown into a pool of ostracisation, and to become a student of a Verwoerdian university. And in the poignant words of Steve Biko, from many years ago, and ironically, a title of one of Dr Badat’s books: “Black man, you are on your own!”” – Malaika Wa Azania, second year student
Email: malaikawaazania@gmail.com”

The pressure to be creative

*Finally* I have created a blog. . . It took me about a year to do this because I didn’t know what I wanted to blog about and I thought my blog had to have a theme before I created it. I felt that it had to have interesting topics and cool title entries before it was even created.Well, I’ve thrown all of that out of the window and decided to just start one anyway. I’m thinking the ‘theme’ will emerge as I keep writing. I have a lot of feelings about a lot of things so hopefully, this will be interesting and luckily for them, my friends won’t have to listen to as many of my rants as they have before.