Event location: South Campus, Council Chambers
Event date and time: 02/08/2018 18:00:00
This conversation aims to explore the concepts of gender, power and sexuality in post-apartheid South Africa, the complications of everyday life as an inter-sectional feminist or as someone who has multiple oppression to deal with daily.
In 1996 a new constitution (with provision for women's rights) was introduced and importantly for women, a Commission for Gender Equality was set up. In 2005, then President Thabo Mbeki, appointed Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, as the first ever female deputy president of the country.
Prof Puleng Segalo (2015:70); argues that “Since the advent of democracy in South Africa, far-reaching changes have taken place in many areas of society. While many positive changes have taken place in the new dispensation; however, the promise of democracy has not been fully met. The hope for collectivity and trust in the government system seems to be an ideal to which many are still striving.” Whilst gay marriages (unions) were legalized in 1996, there is still a significant lack of trans-representation in governmental policies, in managerial positions and in media.
How then do we think through erasure; how do we experience being a womxn and understand feminism(s); how do we protest societal conformations; what does democracy mean to a womxn dealing with so many ‘liberations’?
What strategies do we need to adopt to resist hegemonic and heteronormative logics of society and fundamentally, how do we begin to narrate those erased stories in a democratic South Africa?