Women Activists From South Africa

"I was born intersex. I was born with ambiguous genitalia, and for a very long time in my life I was extremely ashamed about it, and because the idea of sex and genitals is not an open conversation in African culture, it is not something that we talk about as Africans,"

"Ifared no better at Church, where as a youth pastor I desperately tried to find a sense of belonging. When I told the pastor I was intersexed and probably wouldn’t have children I learnt that in Christian belief they deny intersexed people are not created in the likeness of God. We are a variant of sexual development, as are homosexuals."

"I am so pleased I never had surgery. The people I met, most of them, black and white, who have had surgery as babies, usually have confused parents who the doctors incorrect informed, and the children were subjected to surgery which has ended up being far more traumatic and confusing.” “We have been raised in a world that makes us feel like monsters. My advice to other intersex people is to love and accept. Only then will you make the right decision about surgery. Read and research the situation, meet others like yourself and get in touch with an intersex support group. Surgery is not a magic pill that has no consequences."

"It is hard to talk about intersex activism in South Africa and not mention the ground breaking work of Sally Gross, a South African intersex activist and founder of the Intersex Society of South Africa."

"My work as an activist also involves a lot of media visibility, and it is not easy being visible. The first time I appeared in a national magazine, I had to spend an entire month avoiding calls or being alone in public."

"Access to healthcare is still difficult for the average South African, access to healthcare for an intersex person is even worse, there are only a few hospitals in the country that can cater for the needs of intersex persons with care and understanding."

"This led me to joining NGOs that claimed to support intersex people, I don’t remember many intersex people being supported but in the end I was caught up with policy meetings, legislation consultations, movement politics and eventually we all forgot about the people we were trying to serve. I had to leave and here I am constantly dealing with the guilt of “leaving the movement”."

"I never wanted to become an activist, all I ever wanted was to reach out and support people that had similar experiences as mine, people that felt isolated and needed someone who understood what they were going through."

"Because people who did, they’re going through a very hard time at the moment because the surgeries have got very negative effects on them. So, I’m not ashamed of who I am anymore. I love myself. And I want to tell intersex people that you can’t expect people to love you if you don’t love yourself first, and to live your life because No Body Is Shameful"

"Instead of women of colour not being recognised within the movement at all, they’re now being ‘othered’ to such an extent that the white Western feminist is cast in the role of educated saviour, and women of colour cast in the roles of uneducated victims in desperate need of feminism as the white woman sees it."

"As current and past events show us, this is an extremely apt point. Let us not forget Germany's international human rights campaign ad which depicted a woman in a blue burqa posed next to blue trash bags. This picture and its role in advocating for women’s rights is discussed by Maya Dusenbery in Feministing, an online platform run by and for young feminists dedicated to viewing the world through a feminist lens."

"The picture couldn’t be any more clear; women wearing veils, hijabs or burqas are in need of the West’s superior morals, education and protection. Dusenbery aptly terms this campaign and the message behind it as ‘paternalistic bullshit.’ Campaigns such as this do the opposite of help women, they only serve to burden them with another obstacle to overcome, imposed by Westerners who refuse to listen with respect."

"Working with the recollections of everyday experiences of apartheid collected by the Apartheid Archives project, and drawing on the emerging theorization of ignorance in the critical philosophy of race, this article explores how an ‘ignorance contract’ – the tacit agreement to entertain ignorance – lies at the heart of a society structured in racial hierarchy. Unlike the conventional theorization of ignorance that regards ignorance as a matter of faulty individual cognition, or a collective absence of yet-to-be-acquired knowledge, ignorance is understood as a social achievement with strategic value."

"Thank you for such a stimulating and often controversial presentation. As they say: "Three Jews, four different opinions"."

"We apologise for holding this meeting during the month of Ramadan. We have begun at 6.30 to allow the Parliamentarians to arrive. One of the functions of the Trust is to promote intellectual debate in post democratic South Africa. We produce a pamphlet of these monthly meetings. Many thanks to Leslie Liddell."

"Jonathan Shapiro (Zapiro) will open the discussion. He has studied Architecture and Fine Art at the School of Visual Arts in New York. He is published in newspapers and educational magazines and in fact is "the cartoonist for most newspapers." Milton Shain is Director of Jewish Studies at UCT and has written and edited many books on Jewish History. He has also received numerous awards both at Jerusalem and Yale Universities."

"Whiteness Just Isn't What It Used To Be."

"The central question for whiteness in post-apartheid South Africa can be put simply: how to maintain privilege in a situation in which black people have achieved political power. Many stances to the new dispensation are available to white South Africans, but this article concerns only resistant white discourses, referred to as White Talk."

"The apartheid narratives illustrate that for ignorance to function as social regulation, subjectivities must be formed that are appropriate performers of ignorance, disciplined in cognition, affect and ethics."

"Both white and black South Africans produced epistemologies of ignorance, although the terms of the contract were set by white society as the group with the dominant power."

"Contemporary post-colonial geopolitics has witnessed the changing nature of the nation state. Initially conceived of as the territorial “home” of an ethnically and racially homogenous group, the notion of the nation state is increasingly characterised by difference and complexity. There are few contexts where people are not confronted by difference in the workplace, in organisations and public spaces, and as an aspect of the general body politic. The challenge therefore is how to value what different groups may bring to the collective while, at the same time, maintaining cohesive societies. In difficult economic times, this includes rejecting policies that approach difference through segregation, expulsion and ethnic cleansing in favour of inclusive political and economic measures and equitable sharing of resources. It also requires public spaces that are characterised by accessibility and safety for all raced, gendered and differently abled bodies. For organisations, the challenges cluster around such issues as how to create environments that can bring into play the strengths of difference to promote organisational goals, while at the same time enabling employees to reach their full potential, to have their contribution valued and to feel recognised and respected."

"even in the apartheid times, although there was segregation, there was all these laws that"

"Education takes the most extraordinary amount of discipline, effort and hard work. Reward is always related to this. Time management, beginning with arriving on time for lessons, is essential, but it is a very hard thing to learn."

"The challenge of transformation is to improve quality. Time management is essential but we also have to measure our performance against benchmarks. For instance we need to know how many days are spent teaching and how well learners are doing."

"I must tell you that the attitude of the staff, which had been one of anger initially, changed quite fundamentally after this incident. I think what changed the dynamic was that I had experienced some of their daily reality, and the conditions under which they work."

"Liberals make space for people with opposing views. I believe in the falsification principle — one must always look for reasons why one may be wrong rather."

"well-staffed schools would lose teachers and under-staffed schools would gain teachers. I supported this objective, as well as the original strategy to achieve it, which would have enabled well-staffed schools to determine which posts to lose on the basis of educational criteria."

"Today this kind of analysis is entirely obsolete, but at the time it was taken as self-evident by many activists. This kind of ideology does not respect alternative views or allow an open society."

"It was interesting to note that every time events in our history offered people a choice between race or class solidarity, race seemed to win. Marxists were ingenious at explaining this away, but it was all rather tortuous. Marxists have to squeeze facts into their framework, to prove the historical inevitability of the working class revolution and the demise of capitalism."

"It was an unusual background and I often felt a cultural clash between my school and home environments."

"The country is bedeviled with a lot of issues. And you know you have hardly been recovering from the one blast, or controversy, then you when you turn around, there is another volley"

"This democracy run by this government which is a liberated country, but nothing has changed. The"

"What we did then was have a"

"And we believe in the same, and we should be calling it national core"

"Whenever female members stood up, they were clearly not interested. They [male MPs] started talking on their own.”"

"Women have brought a different culture to Parliament. It’s less of a beer-swilling, let’s sort things out in the bar kind of place."

"MPs need a legal desk to explain legislation to them. When the department briefs you, you have no way of understanding. You’re not debating with effective input,”"

"If it weren’t for the ANC ladies and the pressure they put on the government, females would have been much worse off."

"Many women say that if Parliament – the legislative arm of government – is to be the locale of power and not the executive, then women must be better trained. Many women MPs had not seen draft statutes and, having come from the trenches, were not au fait with parliamentary proceedings."

"The gender quota is not up for debate in the ruling party and their gains have given a fillip to women in more conservative parties."

"A measured and God-fearing woman not usually given to such outbursts"

"Some women in the ANC had wanted the quota beefed up to one in two candidates. They failed in their bid, but it remains the only party with a quota of seats reserved for women"

"Let us be brave: we have heard of men shaking in their trousers, but who ever heard of a woman shaking in her skirt?"

"She spoke the language of the worker, and she was herself an ordinary factory worker. When she said what she stood for, she evoked emotions no other person could evoke;Winnie Madikizela-Mandela"

"She can toss an audience on her little finger, get men grunting with shame and a feeling of smallness;Ezekiel Mphahlele"

"My mother firmly believed our tears shall be wiped away in the next world. I believed we should start enjoying life here."

"We feel small to say thanks all the time."

"As an activist legislature, our immediate task is to refashion and reengineer all our efforts to ensure clear government response to these pressing challenges."

""In light of the financial constraints and budget cuts faced by the legislature, we shall continue with more cost-curtailment measures and a reprioritization of programmes,”"

"She also stated that the legislature would continue to involve the public in the processes and programmes of the legislature through public hearings, petition processes, sector parliaments, sittings of the house and initiatives such as Taking the Legislature to the People.""