The role of women in a system of global oppression is relegated to footnotes
BY: SHATADI PHOSHOKO
DURBAN - THE capitalist economy has obvious features of racism and sexism.
The structural system of power which governs the direction of the state is fundamentally white and male. Expressed differently, the ruling class which controls the strategic sectors of this economy is pure white, and this wealth is monopolised by men.
Beyond the façade of democracy and the rich rhetoric of gender equality, the women of this country are still chained to the yoke of triple oppression. Consequently, the role of women in a global ruling system of gender oppression is relegated to footnotes.
A 2019 data conducted by Statista, which showed the distribution of gender billionaires, revealed that less than 11,9% of women are billionaires and this undoubtedly, is resultant of the patriarchy and capitalism systems that reinforce the domination of men.
Universities are a miniature model of the greater societal and structural framework designed outside women’s active participation, particularly at its hierarchical apex. Institutions of higher learning are important areas bestowed with the basic core thrust to produce correct diverse epistemologies.
The fundamental responsibility of the intellectual landscape is to provide scholarly leadership that aims at remembering the dismembered black people and restore their relegated history.
However, the existing disciplines still reflect the monochrome logic of western epistemology that draws lineage to the colonial project centred on the rule of oppression and therefore entrenches the tradition of inequalities in academia. The universal categorisation of women as the other despite their meaningful contribution is preserved in academia. Academia still views women as faces of poverty and substandard beings in these thinking spaces.
There are fewer women in permanent positions of academia. The number of men enrolling at universities is dropping, and in addition, more women are completing their studies in undergraduate studies yet struggle to make great inroads in advancing a career in academia. Moreover, men are projected as universal tellers of truth, they are authors of all the knowledge we consume, and the level of gatekeeping against women is at its peak.
In extension, universities are filled with symbols of men, in the form of building names and statues inter alias. This culture of colonial and post-colonial symbolism completely displaces the idea of women as capable leaders of society. It locates and defines women as permanent followers.
With the above mentioned fragments, women continue to be subjected to the status of subordinate or supplemental. Leadership theorised from a social construction perspective dictates the automatic and effortless elevation and acceptance of men into leadership positions, favourable by society as opposed to women.
Leaders of influential positions of authority remain largely men. Exemplified; In South Africa, with its 26 Universities, only 4 of the 26 vice-chancellors are women. Unisa, in its 147 years of inception, has only had its first female vice-chancellor (VC) in 2021. This is demonstrative of the omnipresent system of coloniality which births patriarchy.
The latter paragraph is deliberately structured to paint a picture of how women are still relegated to the status of inability to lead critical positions of power and influence while men occupy these positions.
Politics, which dictate the direction of society, are led by men. Unions, Forums, student activism movements and others across the political divide are led by men. Hence, even the structural anatomy of the University is flooded by men in key leadership positions. This is the result of the arrangement of the patriarchal order in society. The level of resources that men accumulate makes it easy for them to demobilise descending views from organised women.
I am serving as the Secretary-General (SG) of Unisa Law Students Association (ULSA) and emerged as the SG of the National Student Representative Council at the university. However, I am a subject of constant criticism by virtue of gender and, possibly men are at the level of questioning our existence. This criticism is constant and critically unsubstantial. These are just trends of male chauvinism.
The VC and principal of Unisa, Professor Puleng LenkaBula has been facing a harsh backlash on her leadership style. The VC is a highly acclaimed international scholar with indisputable leadership qualities. Her vision to transform Unisa as a traditional Distance Learning Institution underpinned on outdated policy framework will significantly contribute towards establishing an unmatched intellectual landscape with a competitive business model.
However, there is an organised zeal that seeks to disorganize and relegate her being. These are, but of the many clear descriptions of our lived realities as women under the yoke of gender oppression.
The antithetical response to the prevailing discourse is a prescription of decolonial feminism. Through decolonial feminism in higher education, we strive to unmask the deep-seated culture and also reposition the trends that automatically relegates women at face value.
Legislation across all strata of leadership must be amended to redress injustices of the past. As ULSA, our organisational policy provides a 50/50 gender policy. Simplified, this entails that it is mandatory for the executive committee to comprise 50% males and 50% females.
Moreover, the top 2 positions, being the president and secretary-general or chairperson and secretary must also comply with the provision of the gender policy, in that, if the president is a male, the secretary-general automatically becomes a female and vice versa.
The struggle of gender equity will be nothing but abstractionism if it lacks decolonial feminism to unearth gender stereotypes and further reposition higher education as a harmonious space for development across the gender divide.
* Shatadi Phoshoko is Secretary General of Unisa National Student Representative Council (NSRC) and a gender activist.
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