#MbokodoLeadUs: the gendered politics of black womxn leading campus-based activism in South Africa’s recent university student movements

ABSTRACT

South Africa has a patriarchal tendency to treat womxn as beneficiaries of protest and activism rather than as agents in the construction of a new socio-political order and as drivers of change through protest. This paper examines the internal gender tensions within South Africa's 2015-2016 student movements including how these tensions materialised publicly; in a sample of university campuses and in the media. The complex particularities of young black womxn who are agitating for an intersectional approach to protest - one that privileges gender - and an end to patriarchy and misogynoir in these movements is observed. Content analysis of self-articulated goals, mission statements on various media and case studies are detailed where black womxn activists constitute majority membership in movements even as they remain disenfranchised in their operationalising. To counter marginality, black womxn student activists' interventions demonstrate a new radical political autonomy that embraces an inclusive feminist ideology.

KEYWORDS:

• #FeesMustFall
• feminism
• black women
• student protest
• social movements

Background

2015–2016 were volatile and transformative years for South Africa’s higher education institutions, catalysed partly by University of Cape Town (UCT) student Chumani Maxwele (Lucas 2015), who – in the second week of March 2015 – hurled faeces at the statue of Cecil John Rhodes that stood at UCT’s main Rondebosch campus. Maxwele’s performative act, motivated in part by persistent concern about structural inequalities, set in motion the #RhodesMustFall (RMF) campaign which then galvanised a series of national student movements constructed around the decolonising agenda. The term ‘Fallism’ became a way to identify the shared aims in the movements’ political philosophies, both as a literal description of the collapse of the statue and the whiteness it upholds, but also as a call to dismantle all the oppressive vestiges of colonialism that have no place in contemporary life, i.e., to topple in order to rebuild.

Other universities joined the protest under the overarching #FeesMustFall (FMF) banner initiated at the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS) over imminent fee increases. Universities nationwide experienced shutdowns and unprecedented mass protest action. Protests culminated in a march to Luthuli House (the ruling party’s headquarters) on 24 October 2015 led by then incoming Student Representative Council (SRC) leader, Nompendulo Mkhatshwa and then outgoing SRC leader Shaeera Kalla of WITS. The day after the march to Luthuli House, more than 10,000 students from higher education institutions in the Gauteng province marched on the Union Buildings (the official offices of the president) in Pretoria against looming fee increases. Hours after the march, President Jacob Zuma declared a zero per cent fee increase for 2016, a small victory in the fight towards free and equal education for all the country’s citizens. While the FMF movement is ongoing, its activity was most heightened in 2015–2016.¹

What followed the short-lived triumph were narratives of in-fighting in protest groups, visible chasms in ideology, factions within the movements and instances of violence. Equally significant was the way a select few womxn leaders were held up to national prominence during the protests, contrary to the lived experience of protesting womxn on the ground.² It is hard to forget the often-circulated images of Nompendulo Mkhatshwa on the day of the march to Luthuli House. In the images she stands with both her arms raised, hands balled up into fists, a green and gold ANC-logo-covered iqhiya wrapped around her head and her eyes downcast.³ She looks visibly exhausted but not beaten, weary but stoic. She stands as a part of the group, but she is clearly leading. To her left stands Shaeera Kalla. Closely behind them are thousands of young people marching to Luthuli House to deliver a memorandum of demands to government. The images were replicated and disseminated many times over and became somewhat iconic. Both Shaeera and Nompendulo became instant media darlings, covering national magazines, being interviewed on national television and radio shows. Nompendulo was hailed as the second coming of the likes of struggle stalwarts Lilian Ngoyi and Winnie Mandela (Cele 2015). She was celebrated for some time before stories of political collusion began to erupt (Whittles 2016). The aim is not to throw Nompendulo’s name into disrepute but rather to highlight the incongruence of one inspiring young black womxn being celebrated as the audacious face of FMF, against the day-to-day incidents being reported by womxn who were doing the less glamorous footwork. These incidents included stories of male-controlled intimidation, sexual assault, violence, police brutality and stories of trans and queer womxn feeling marginalised in the movement. What is more, even though Nompendulo catapulted to fame, there were those men in the movement – supposed allies – who struggled with the notion of ‘getting behind a woman’. This was articulated by former WITS student Pontsho Pilane, who during the protests, recalled how one black male protester shouted: ‘we won’t be told by a woman!’ and several other black male protestors said that ‘feminism must voetsek’⁴ when Nompendulo addressed them (Pilane 2015).

While South Africa has a long history of student activism, this article considers the position of black womxn in recent movements in a sample of historically white universities (HWUs). Since student activism at historically black universities (HBUs) was characteristically tied to the larger liberation struggle and the dismantling of racial inequalities broadly (Franklin 2003, 215), movements did not typically prioritise other systems of difference such as gender or sexuality. This focus on black womxn’s activism in HWU contexts, is neither to discredit protest action at HBUs, nor is it to perpetuate the real inequalities that persist between historically disadvantaged and historically privileged institutions. The unfortunate reality however is that the 2015–2016 student movements at HWUs garnered greater media coverage. Furthermore, in addition to campaigns under the decolonising objective, RMF also prompted counter campaigns advocating an intersectional approach.

To explore the participation and contributions of black womxn within student movements today, we deliberate over three interventions: the UCT-based campaigns #PatriarchyMustFall (PMF) and Trans Collective (TC), the #RUReferenceList at Rhodes University and the naked protest at WITS. These movements are explored within the broader RMF and FMF movements that frame and justify their existence.

Introduction

In April 2016, during the FMF protests, a physical altercation erupted among protesters. Upon viewing the footage, which was documented and circulated on social media, several men could be seen tussling with two womxn. One of the men was identified as Chumani Maxwele, the young man who had set in motion the RMF campaign. How could such a revolutionary be allegedly enacting violence towards a womxn and spewing anti-LGBT slurs like ‘stabane’?⁵ After the incident, the RMF group distanced itself from Maxwele, announcing via Twitter: ‘He does not represent us. One of our pillars is Black feminism – a violent misogynist cannot be called a Fallist’ (Mamba 2016). Thenjiwe Mswane, one of the victims, alleged that Maxwele had hauled her out of a group meeting because he said, ‘feminists are not allowed and queer bodies are not allowed’ (Mamba 2016). Maxwele later denied any claims or acts of violence towards anyone. Those now iconic pictures of Nompendulo and the physical attack involving Maxwele were the initial emotive prompts for this paper. Juxtaposing both moments reveals a telling story about the role womxn have played in shaping South Africa’s democracy and the harsh reality of assault they face day-to-day. Additionally, the authors are both black womxn who work in higher education, have linkages with some of the universities examined and use feminist ideologies in their research approach.

While womxn have played an important role before, during and after South Africa’s democratic transition, the side-lining and abuse of black womxn is not unusual where gender issues have historically taken a backseat to race issues and class often seems to be hidden behind both gender and race in revealing ways (Seidman 1999, 287). In many ways this tendency was replicated during the 2015–2016 student movements except now, young black womxn student activists are deliberate in insisting on an intersectional approach to mobilising, that is, one that recognises how variables such as gender, disability or sexual orientation work together in either enabling or incapacitating access and opportunities. Additionally, these young black womxn activists are calling for an end to misogynoir, that is, the particular racialized sexism that black womxn face that ‘has to do with the ways that anti-Blackness and misogyny combine to malign Black women in our world’ (Bailey and Trudy 2018, 2). This decided positioning was embodied by the #MbokodoLeadUs and #PatriarchyMustFall campaigns. Accordingly, this paper examines the gender tensions within South Africa’s recent student movements, protest antecedents and how these tensions materialised publicly, on the various university campuses and in the media broadly.

Black womxn have had to navigate not only gender tensions, but also race-related strains at HWUs. The RMF protests of March 2015 comprised a group of ‘predominantly black students’ at UCT (Ndelu, Dlakavu, and Boswell 2017, 1). Likewise, most student movements that emerged after FMF have a membership and leadership that is primarily black (Maringira and Gukurume 2016, 34). Given the racialised politics of HWUs that have been the hub of protest action in recent years, this race demographic is ‘not surprising’ (Maringira and Gukurume 2016, 34). For example, FMF raised difficult questions around white privilege, and it was reported that only progressive white academics and students continued supporting the movement (Meth 2016, 105). In both the RMF and FMF movements, racial dynamics disrupt the fallacy of HWUs as racially inclusive since black students often find it difficult to negotiate their social identities within these institutions (Bazana and Mogotsi 2017). Black womxn in particular appreciated how the RMF movement ‘provided the space for revelations about Black people’s capabilities … without Whiteness being the yardstick’ (Matandela 2017). However, unlike black men, they were simultaneously presented with the challenge of inserting their voices within the politics of patriarchy and heteronormativity.

This complex positionality is not new as historically, black womxn have been specifically oppressed in terms of their colour (racism as a legal system in South Africa), by class (the system that creates legal disabilities) and gender (as inferior to white men, white womxn and black men) (Maimela 1999, 238). Having very little control over their status and environment, black womxn suffer greater effects of illiteracy, are more likely to be unemployed, paid less than men when employed and more likely to perform unpaid labour (Hassim 2005; Seidman 1999). Black womxn face ongoing abuse, murder and sexual violation, yet crimes committed against them are either underreported or unsolved. Despite having contributed significantly to today’s global understandings of women’s rights and having gained increased visibility in leadership, from politics to business, black womxn continue to be under-represented in academic spaces and are still fighting for prominence as national/global economic power players. All this is to say, historically black womxn have struggled for gender equality, equality in the workplace and cultural recognition, and have fought against social and economic exclusion (Gouws 2014, 19).

In its unfolding, this paper attempts to ask: (1) What do we learn about internal fractures within social movements and feminist activism? (2) What is this recent revival teaching us about the generational nature of movements? The methodology is informed by content analysis through engagement with weblog posts, radio interviews, newspaper articles, videos, social media posts and news clips. Through the substantial coverage these campaigns generated, the participation and experiences of young black womxn occupying various intersecting identities, could be tracked. We deliberate briefly over a history of challenges that characterise womxn’s social movements: during apartheid, in the Black Consciousness Movement and in post-colonial South Africa. The impact of social media on the tactics young black womxn use to mobilise is then considered; in particular, how the black womxns’ body is used as strategic text to communicate during protest. What follows is a discussion of a sample of black womxn-led interventions across three universities. The paper then considers how these black womxn-led movements are contributing to gender discourse in South Africa before concluding with the policy strides to which these student movements have contributed.

On Mbokodo’s leading: the challenges of black womxn mobilising in South Africa

In South Africa, nationalism has played a central role in political organising at the cost of gender equality concerns (Hassim 2005, 178). Having written extensively in this area, Shireen Hassim draws attention to the limitations of feminism in fully addressing the particularities of (apartheid) South Africa, for example, issues related to sexuality, reproductive rights, and gender-based violence were often overlooked as concerns of ‘western feminism’ (Hassim 2005, 178). In addition, womxn faced a sense of exclusion from the larger national liberation movement as they were frequently left out of decision-making processes that remained male-centred and male-dominated (Hassim 2005, 178). Despite such challenges, womxn have inserted their interests in both anti-apartheid and post-1994 social movements.

Founded on the overarching ideals of full equality and opportunities for women, the Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW) and the Women’s National Coalition (WNC) emerged as important pre-1994 inter-racial organisations (Department of Education, The Republic of South Africa 2008, 10, 14). While FEDSAW saw nearly 20,000 women marching to the Union Buildings in Pretoria on 9 August 1956, against the government’s policy of forcing African womxn to carry government issued identity documents, the WNC advocated women’s full participation in the development of the Constitution (Department of Education, The Republic of South Africa 2008, 15). These organisations were essentially highlighting and advancing feminist concerns.

Womxn’s participation in recent student movements follows a genealogy of feminist activism in South Africa. An example is the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF), which was formed in 2000 and became defunct in 2011 (Jolaosho 2018, 426). The Gender Reference Group (GRG) and Remmoho (meaning ‘we are together’ in Sesotho) emerged out of the activities of the APF (Jolaosho 2018, 430). While the APF had mixed membership, its two offshoots, in their commitment to women’s empowerment and experiences, gender equity and fostering women-friendly environments overall, were constituted of entirely women (Jolaosho 2018, 431). Given that the APF reflected the inherent contradiction of women accounting for most campaigners in post-1994 movements, while males dominated these structures (Jolaosho 2018, 426), GRG and Remmoho arose as alternatives that would facilitate women’s democratic participation and meaningful inclusion in social movements.

While adopting a feminist ethos and the eradication of patriarchy are some of the common features binding South African womxn’s social movements, anti-apartheid activist Thenjiwe Mtintso explains some of the challenges attached to the category called ‘woman’ and the fallacy of sisterhood. Mtintso argues that for a group to say that they represent all womxn’s interests under the ‘sisterhood’ banner is problematic (Mtintso 2003, 570). So too, is seeing patriarchy as universal because womxn cannot be reduced to an exceptional and singular category called ‘woman’, nor can all womxn’s interests be represented all the time. Moreover, not all womxn necessarily have a common understanding of patriarchy or gender relations for that matter (Mtintso 2003, 571). Similarly, Hassim makes the point that ‘women do not mobilize as women simply because they are women’, because womxn are heterogeneous and might frame their actions in terms of a range of identities, for example, as students, as queer students, as queer black students, etc. (Hassim 2005, 176). This is an important qualification because protests around essentialised identities of womxn cannot be had without acknowledging the impact of intersectionality within womxn’s identities.

It is difficult to examine the recent student movements and ignore parallels between this contemporary moment and student activism in the 1960s and 70s, especially the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM). The BCM was galvanised by young black students coming out of the South African Students’ Organization (SASO), in particular, around the beliefs of Steve Biko. After nearly five decades, Biko’s values and philosophies are influencing a new generation of young people giving praxis to theory that exalts the rejection of whiteness and seeks to instil in the black community, a sense of ‘pride in themselves, their efforts, their value systems, their culture, their religion and their outlook to life’ (Biko 1978, 53). However, Black Consciousness from 1968 to 1977 was decidedly male, its language was masculine, even sexist, yet womxn played prominent and critical roles in the organisation and its events (Magaziner 2011, 45–46). Speaking on sexism in the BCM, Mamphela Ramphele admits that womxn did not matter as leaders, the focus was unquestionably on the men even though black womxn had so many more obstacles, historical impediments and were the most oppressed (Yates, Gqola, and Ramphele 1998, 90). Ramphele recalls being a young womxn in SASO who – despite constant discouragement and misogynoir at the hands of black men – would always challenge the men becoming what she called, ‘a pain in the side of a lot of men’ (Yates, Gqola, and Ramphele 1998, 91). Historian Daniel Magaziner remembers this line of defence being common in that era because of womxn self-consciously having to ‘out-man’ men by being more defiant and more outrageous in order to be heard (Magaziner 2011, 56). Magaziner emphasises,

The politics of gender in Black Consciousness thus offers historical insights into ongoing debates about the role or absence of women in African and diaspora social movements, and especially about the forms of ‘African feminism’ that social movements have produced. (Magaziner 2011, 48)

This kind of feminism (observing the interaction between race and gender) goes beyond mere participation to really challenging the status quo in ways that create a distinct politics of the (black) female experience (Magaziner 2011, 48).

The complexity of black womxnhood is what the young black womxn student activists of today are still wrestling with while also recognising the influence of political antecedents, that is, those womxn who have historically fought in the liberation struggle. The activists of today acknowledge this history as they consciously pay homage with the phrase ‘Mbokodo Lead Us’. At the 9 August 1956 protest march led by activist Lillian Ngoyi, the famous slogan ‘wathint’ abafazi, wathint’ imbokodo, uzokufa’ (You strike women, you strike a rock; you will die) was uttered for the first time. Thereafter it was adopted as the slogan for most womxn’s social movements and organisations (Maimela 1999, 232). At the height of the student protests, young black womxn activists again adopted the rallying cry: Mbokodo Lead Us!, imploring these unshakeable rocks, the force known as ‘womxn’ to pick up the baton and play a leading role in these movements.

When they begin, ‘social movements often rely on the language of their predecessors, situating their struggles within established discursive frameworks to inspire public recognition and identification’ (Hodes 2016, 144). FMF is no different in this regard, appropriating and adapting slogans, songs, gestures and iconography of the anti-apartheid resistance movement. This was demonstrated by slogans seen on protestor placards such as ‘we are not looking for our own struggles, we are fighting an old one’ and ‘1976 reloaded’, a reference to the 16 June 1976 Soweto uprising that saw a comparable number of black students demonstrating, many of whom lost their lives on that fateful day. While today’s struggles may be slightly different, they are very much linked to history except today’s movements promise ‘a new reckoning with the structures of power and oppression’ (Hodes 2016, 144).

#Feesmustfall: a radical social movement

One vital characteristic of a social movement is its ideology. FMF had an obvious overarching goal – a decrease in higher education tuition and the eventual eradication of university tuition all together. RMF, its precursor was about identifying many other things that make South African universities unaccommodating spaces; a lack of transformation which includes curriculum, a lack of racial representation among faculty/management, concerns over campus safety, offensive historical objects and the outsourcing of student residence and low-income university workers. However, the language of the movement became increasingly divisive leading to the formation of groups like PMF and the TC. Those who formed part of these counter campaigns recognised that they need to protect their interests and include in the discourse of change, gender and sexuality issues. These shifting ideologies caused some friction but also began to lend something special to the movement; radical rhetoric that particularises the black womxn’s body, and therefore experience.

Social movement norms include events and products such as sit-ins, public speeches, demonstrations, letters, pamphlets and editorials but the tactics and ‘fast activism’ we saw black feminists using during FMF was confrontational, immediate and poignant. What also enabled the wide reach and made these protests even more unprecedented, was the role of social media in heightening information sharing and online activism. Social media made it possible for ‘fast activism’, that is, ‘activism that happens quickly and creates a dramatic event whereas slow activism is the long-term activism that involves more organization and planning’ (Robins 2014, 92). Trending hashtags, announcements of jailed comrades and calls to put pressure on officials to release them, as well as bank account details to fund movements were shared. WhatsApp groups were formed that enabled students to communicate across campuses unencumbered by geography, images of police brutality were captured as attacks were happening, self-articulated goals and mission statements of movement groups were disseminated and weblog posts making meaning of the events where shared. All these calls were circulated on Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp through smart phones and other social media. FMF consumed social media in ways that showed extraordinary political mobilisation, gained national attention and disrupted public life (Robins 2014, 105).

What was additionally impactful about the strategies of embodied activism employed by the young black womxn in these movements was their subversive use of gesture, objects, dance, nudity, photography and song. For example, in a performative act, Thenjiwe Mswane entered a protest meeting armed with a sjambok, and confronted a group of male protestors.⁶ Mswane unsettled the protesters by hitting the floor with it and shouting, making reference to what she claimed was the sexual assault of a fellow female student. In her mind, her gesture was a burning and attention-grabbing way of taking a stand against the exclusion of feminist and queer concerns (Joseph 2017, 20). Mswane’s action led up to the alleged attack at the hands of Maxwele in April 2016.

Meanwhile, in May and September 2016, the TC held fundraising events advertised and shared on Facebook called the Twerkfest described as:

a fundraising initiative that unapologetically centres queer black students as its beneficiaries. It is a ‘Hoeist’ initiative to assist in alleviating the pain of the most anti-us institution (money) by politically twerking on the barriers to entry that are specific to black people in general but most specifically to queer peeps. (https://www.facebook.com/transfeministcollective/posts/1257427190990661)

During the illustrious naked protest in April 2016 at Rhodes University (a direct response to the release of the RU Reference List), the lyrics of popular liberation struggle protest song Nantsi indonda emnyama (Here comes the black man) were changed to Nanku umfazi omnyama (Here comes the black woman) to include black womxn, adding to the process of healing the rifts that were beginning to define the movements (Matandela 2015). Music-making and protest singing facilitates and indeed enhances joint activism (Jolaosho 2019, 9). It is also social media that birthed the hashtags #PatriarchyMustFall, #TransFeministCollective and #MbokodoLeadUs which then became powerful movements in their own right.

On patriarchy falling and womxn rising

Patriarchy Must Fall (PMF) was formed some months after RMF when a group of feminists from UCT became acutely aware of the predominantly black male leadership governing RMF. It became apparent that the prominence of these black men would only further lead to the marginalisation of black womxn, increase patriarchal tendencies in meetings and protest spaces, while continuing to overlook the ongoing rape culture and instances of sexual violence at university campuses (Isdahl 2016, 16). PMF became a charge against cultures of cisheteronormativity, patriarchy and misogyny (https://www.facebook.com/UCT-PatriarchyMustFall-163,208,0430398144/). Consequently, other smaller factions of the larger movement began to form, for example, the Trans Collective (TC), which describes itself as a student-led organisation that prioritises the rights of transgender, gender non-conforming and intersex students at UCT. TC and PMF held that RMF and later FMF had not been inclusive and intersectional, taking feminist writer Audre Lorde’s contention that there is no hierarchy of oppression and deliberately promoting their marginalised identities as key in, and to, protests.

Indeed, these largely black feminist offshoots began to recognise that RMF and later FMF were reproducing suffering by becoming increasingly sexist, violent and exclusionary. Mbali Matandela, one of the founders of PMF writes:

We began speaking up at meetings about what it means to be a black womxn or LGTBQIA people in an institution that still celebrates misogyny and white supremacy … we knew how easily patriarchy can dominate any context, even protests about equal rights … people will look back at this movement one day and see how a small group of black feminists changed the politics of a black consciousness space – a space that has previously excluded these populations. They will remember how black womxn and members of the LGBTQIA community became valued members of one of the most important movements in the university’s history. (Matandela 2015)

Critical to the PMF and TC factions was to employ creative methods that would embody their self-articulated goals but also stage interventions that would be both agential and drive change. These interventions would have to be boldly anti-misogynist, anti-homophobic and address the rampant sexual violence and rape culture at South Africa’s higher education institutions and in society broadly (Hodes 2016, 145). Three prominent protest interventions lead by black womxn will be briefly discussed: (1) The Trans Collective’s disruption of a photographic exhibition hosted by RMF as a gesture of resisting the erasure of black trans bodies from official narratives of the RMF movement at UCT; (2) Rhodes University’s RU Reference List, a list released by black womxn activists naming 11 men accused of rape at the university, initiating a national debate around rape culture in a country where rape is endemic and; (3) The WITS naked protest in which womxn students demonstrated against police brutality on campus.

On 9 March 2016, members of the UCT’s Trans Collective (TC) disrupted and subsequently damaged the RMF exhibition called Echoing Voices from Within. TC explained their motivation as the systematic side-lining of LGBTIQA people in RMF structures. The day's events were to consist of a procession around the university’s campus spaces that became sites of action during RMF, interposed by artistic performances including poetry, theatre excerpts and music. The procession would then lead to the Centre for African Studies (CAS) where the exhibition would be unveiled (Newsroom 2016). It was outside and in the CAS Gallery that members of the TC, smeared with red paint, prevented the exhibition from opening, grabbed the keynote speakers’ microphone, removed some photographs and smeared red paint over photographs and posters. Members of the TC covered in red paint signifying blood, topless and others completely nude, lay down in the CAS Gallery passageway, provoking the crowd to ‘walk over’ their bodies as a protest against what they considered to be the trampling of their transgender and transsexual identities in protest spaces (Newsroom 2016). HeJin Kim, a member of the TC, had written over their completely naked body in red paint, the words ‘war zone’ – symbolising their body as a ‘war zone’. Other members of the TC lay down physically blocking the entrance to the exhibition hall; they held placards containing messages over their naked bodies. One placard read ‘RMF will not tokenise our presence as if they ever treasured us as part of their movement’ (Ramji 2016). On a photograph of Maxwele mid-protest action at the foot of the imposing Rhodes statue, the TC activists emblazoned the word ‘rapist’ in the red paint. In action, ‘activists removed their clothes as a brazen challenge to presumptions of bodily integrity and proscriptions of feminine modesty’ (Hodes 2016, 145). The TC also noted that of the many images featured in the exhibition space, only three featured individuals who identified as transgender or transsexual, and asked that these ‘token’ photographs be removed from the exhibition.

Soon after the TC’s disruption, over at Rhodes University on 17 April 2016, a list dubbed the RU Reference List was made public on a Facebook group that contained the names of 11 men accused of committing rape at the university (Tadepally and Parker 2016). There had only been two reported rapes in that year (one of which had been withdrawn) and as a result, the university’s management saw fit to admonish the publicised list labelling it a human rights violation and unconstitutional. What would unfold in the week that followed is a series of demonstrations and police interventions that resulted in the university temporarily shutting down. While the action taken to draw up and publish the list of 11 men was indeed shocking and unlawful, the RU Reference List was a distressed act to get the university to commit to reinforce policies and practices around sexual assault, increase prevention efforts, provide adequate support to sufferers and give appropriate penalty to perpetrators (Haith 2016). Through placards, protestors highlighted the kind of victim-blaming responses received from management and the police when there were reported crimes of gender-based violence (Seddon 2016). Students took to the streets of Grahamstown (now called Makhanda) and marched in solidarity calling for the resignation of those on the list in leadership positions, and questioning the efficacy of the university’s sexual assault policy. The protests persisted through the week with calculated demands articulated daily to senior management with a response time assigned.

Although a total of 10 womxn students were implicated in the RU Reference List saga (South Africa: Eastern Cape High Court, Grahamstown 2020, 6), it seems the harshest disciplinary action was meted against final year students Yolanda Dyantyi and Dominique McFall, both of whom were charged with kidnapping and insubordination, and excluded from the university for life (Solomon 2017). This sparked a huge outcry from gender-based violence activists, leading to the hashtag #RhodesWar, with the university’s stance perceived as bigoted and as an act of violence against womxn (Gouws 2018, 4). Additionally, Dyantyi was found guilty of, among other things, defamatory conduct and assault and she had to vacate the university premises by close of business on the date of the order (Meyersfeld 2020, 314). Such levels of disciplinary action demonstrate that systems readily and successfully vilify womxn victims – perhaps more so black womxn – yet are ineffective in holding male perpetrators accountable (Meyersfeld 2020, 314).

In October 2016, months after the RU Reference List was published, students at WITS protested the ceaseless brutalisation of womxn at the hands of law enforcement and private security companies employed by the university in what was called ‘the naked protest’. Several womxn protestors stripped off their tops and bras outside the Great Hall to stop police officers from firing rubber bullets and stun grenades at the students who were demonstrating on campus. Explaining her role, Hlengiwe Ndlovu, one of the womxn who stripped down, said, ‘the moment that we stepped into the protest […] was a form of resistance to say the very same woman’s body is capable of ceasing fire and no one from national or local government could stop it’ (HeraldLive 2016). The other students who put their bodies on the line alongside Ndlovu were Sarah Mokwebo and Lerato Motaung.

The immediacy of these black womxn’s bodies, their bold statement in defiance of police brutality was another way to let it be known that ‘black womxn are an invaluable part of the FMF movement’ (Vallabhjee 2016). In an interview with Marie Claire magazine Sarah Mokwebo reflects on why she participated in the naked protest:

Everyone has a role to play in the protest. It’s how those roles are negotiated and played out in the protest space that’s important. We need to be careful of not silencing and marginalising womxn in protests. Too often, these kinds of spaces are dominated by men, and a masculine energy that makes it hard for womxn and gender non-conforming bodies to participate fully. As we always say, the revolution will be intersectional, or it will be bullsh*t. (Vallabhjee 2016)

The womxn achieved their objective for the intervention; police officers withdrew and ceased fire against the shield of naked black bodies. Mowkebo alludes to the literature that talks about the political significance of naked protests in Africa especially where the naked black body – a womxn’s body – is often demonised and policed.

What these three interventions have in common are the creative tactics of collective embodied activism where black womxn are saying ‘no more!’ at full volume. No longer will they support black patriarchs who do not acknowledge their struggles. These internal gender tensions are also highlighting a range of complex core issues. There cannot be a neat homogenous denotation for ‘woman’ as even the womxn and gender non-conforming individuals involved in the protests recognise that they have different prioritising agendas. Not even Nompendulo was oblivious to the insidious sexism occurring at the student meetings and protests, because she noted in an interview with Destiny Man magazine that ‘there are those who are still behind on ideas of (gender) transformation, but we will wait for them patiently as we have been doing for the last couple of years’ (Zimela 2015). However, where Nompendulo is very considered and even-tempered in her approach to misogynoir, many of black womxn who were leading the intersectional charge were quite clear about the fact that they were no longer willing to wait to be seen and heard. For example, Jodi Williams, a prominent FMF member at Stellenbosch University deliberately asserted in a meeting:

Please remember that in this group we give preference to queer black womxn. Do not disrespect us; do not speak over us. Womxn have been displaced and it will not happen here. When we take questions or suggestions from the house, we accept them from black womxn first. (Cele 2015)

She finishes by saying ‘Mbokodo lead us’ (Cele 2015).

In the recent student movements, tensions were not solely between black men and womxn: even within the feminist structures, divisions arose between students who identified as black, queer and transgender, and those who identified more explicitly with fighting patriarchy. However, these factions resulted in the emergence of a range of expressive feminist interventions. Despite challenges faced by womxn activists, these nationwide student campaigns were not futile. Movements like the RMF and FMF not only underscored the unfair treatment of womxn and gender non-conforming protestors on university campuses, but as with many historic events, they had important implications for policy. These efforts have contributed to the construction of context-sensitive policy development with a gendered and feminist lens. The activism of protestors formed part of the events that led up to the National Strategic Plan on Gender-based Violence (GBV) and Femicide, the national GBV policy published in 2020, which identifies ‘higher education campuses’ as a specific target for government’s campaign to deal with the scourge of GBV.

Some of the dominant black womxn figures of these recent student campaigns continue to blaze trails in politics and education, as well as on issues of social justice, equality and feminism. Following her expulsion from Rhodes University (which she continues to contest in the courts) Yolanda Dyantyi interns at Gender Links, an organisation committed to ending GBV and ensuring gender equality in media, governance and across all spheres of society. Thenjiwe Mswane is a PhD candidate with the Society, Work and Politics (SWOP) Institute, a research entity whose work focuses on bringing positive change to under-privileged communities. While Shaeera Kalla co-founded in 2018 a digital platform (The Mbegu Platform) aimed at providing youth with tools to provide solutions to pressing societal issues, Nompendulo Mkhatshwa sits as a member of the South African parliament.

Conclusion

What is significant about this contemporary moment is the special brand of African feminism being fashioned by young black womxn: we have seen through use of their bodies, audacious protest, poignant imagery, knowledge production about African feminisms, poetry and music. The use of these creative methodologies is not necessarily new, but what is different about today is that the young black womxn agitating for change in these protest spaces now have access to a range of feminist literatures and so their interventions are rooted in a feminist understanding of their modern condition. Access to relevant literature, social media and the use of creative interventions now see these young black womxn activists crafting a new range of feminist understandings that are altering the ways in which they demonstrate. The demand now is that response to these issues be inclusive and safeguard the interests of black womxn, not as an afterthought but as central to movement structures.

Figure 1. Fees must fall protest in action at the University of Cape Town, Hiddingh Campus. (Source: Authors’ own photograph.)

Figure 2. Fees must fall protest in action at the University of Cape Town, Hiddingh Campus. (Source: Authors’ own photograph.)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alude Mahali

Alude Mahali is a Chief Research Specialist in the Inclusive Economic Development programme at the Human Sciences Research Council in South Africa. Her research expertise and experience ranges from youth social justice work employing innovative visual practices to using participatory methodologies for work in the sociology of education.

Noxolo Matete

Noxolo Matete is a lecturer in the department of Drama and Performance Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Her primary research interest is the location of black womxn theatre practitioners within various intersecting identities including race, gender and class. Her doctoral thesis which explores the visibility and participation of black womxn theatre directors across three of South Africa’s six state-funded theatres, was recently passed.

Notes

1 On 9 March 2021, a protest occurred at WITS University over funding and historical debt which once again sparked a national university shutdown.

2 ‘Womxn’ or ‘Womyn’ is now used in place of ‘Woman’ as a symbol of resistance to move beyond a monolithic, white-dominant, cisgender, man-centred understanding of ‘womanhood’ and move toward a more inclusive and empowered meaning. Womxn refers to all people who identity as femme, female, womxn, or transgender.

3 Iqhiya is the isiXhosa word for headwrap.

4 ‘Voetsek’ is an offensive way to say ‘go away’.

5 ‘Stabane’ is a derogatory word for a homosexual.

6 A ‘sjambok’ is a leather whip.