Politics+turns+women’s+battle+into+a+male+weapon,+Karima+Brown,+B+Day



=**Politics turns women’s battle into a male weapon**=


 * Karima Brown, Business Day, 4 December 2007**

A senior male leader of the African National Congress (ANC) asked his spouse what she thought of President Thabo Mbeki’s oft -stated desire to see a woman succeed him as president in 2009.

The answer, he thought, would be obvious. His wife, a progressive, modern woman deeply involved in the struggle to advance women, would surely support the idea of a woman occupying the country’s highest office. So he was somewhat taken aback when she said: “You men only think about us when you’re fighting among yourselves.”

With that throwaway remark, all that is wrong with Mbeki’s drive was made clear. Increasingly in the ANC’s succession race, everything in the political armoury is being used by factions that will appropriate ideas and principles for their own cause. The struggle for gender equity has not escape this onslaught.

It is men who pontificate on the downtrodden status of women, knowing that women form the majority of the electorate. It was this age-old phenomenon of politics that led Karl Marx to write of the French peasantry during the French revolution: “Sie können nicht sich darstellen. Sie müssen dargestellt werden.” (They cannot represent themselves. They must be represented.)

At its worst, these politics of representation become nothing more than cynical appropriation. It needs to be stated for the record that there is indeed a need for a new gender discourse in the ANC and in SA.

There is also a real and legitimate struggle, both inside the ANC and in society generally, to ensure that women and gender inform not only the discourse but policy and action. The ANC — and by extension our society — does the numbers game well, though we still fail dismally on translating this into tangible action to change women’s lives and challenge patriarchal assumptions.

This last point is best illustrated in two recent developments. The first is Mbeki’s gender drive, which is tilted heavily towards head-counting in cabinet, provincial executives, Parliament and local councils. But it is doubtful that any of this has resulted in real gains in the quality of ordinary women’s lives. Pointedly, new rape legislation designed to offer greater protection to survivors has languished in Parliament for seven years.

Secondly, Jacob Zuma’s rape trial exposed how the ANC still refuses to confront the ugly reality of its treatment of women in exile.

Are the ANC and SA ready to be led by a woman? The question is absurd, since it is not at all about the abilities of women to lead, but about the cultural assumptions of those they would lead. It is obvious SA can be led by a woman. It is also true that there are many who could do the job. It is not so obvious, though, that Mbeki does them a favour by placing their claims to the job within the whirlwind of the ANC’s succession dogfight.

Inside Mbeki’s cabinet there are, on the face of it, women who could take over leadership of the country immediately. But ability alone is not enough to secure the top post. Democratic legitimacy demands that one have a recognised support base. The ANC is also an organisation of hidden hierarchies, where power is distrib-uted widely and exercised in complicated and nuanced ways.

Thus a successor in the ANC cannot be chosen by presidential fiat. Mbeki’s own path to power, which frustrated the wishes of former president Nelson Mandela, is proof of this.

An obvious lobby group for a woman candidate, and a potentially powerful support base, would be the ANC Women’s League. However, the league is rent down the middle and has not been able to cohere around a single female candidate.

We should also not underestimate the entrenched sexism that characterises the ANC’s dominant culture.

On top of these hurdles, a woman candidate has been resisted if she is seen as “Mbeki’s choice”, given the open antipathy towards him within the party. If the ANC president is genuinely interested in seeing a woman successor, and his effort is not just a cynical stratagem to block a Zuma ascension, perhaps he should just leave well alone and pray for his desired outcome. Trying to engineer it will set back the cause of women for decades after Mbeki departs the scene.


 * Brown is political editor


 * From: http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/opinion.aspx?ID=BD4A648999**

726 words