THE Soul City Institute notes with concern the attempted depowerment of Judge Sisi Khampepe by former President Jacob Zuma’s Foundation.
Judge Khampepe announced the sentencing of Jacob Zuma to a prison sentence of 15 months which the Jacob Zuma foundation denounced as “judicially emotional and angry and not consistent with our Constitution”.
The gendered attacks on Judge Khampepe are a clear demonstration of patriarchy’s fundamental issue with the idea that womxn can be in positions of power and can be able to execute their duties without fear or favour.
Despite deliberate attempts by feminists to fight for gender justice, patriarchy continues to entrench the idea that womxn are incapable of occupying powerful positions thus attempting to weaken womxn’s empowerment in the country.
The depowerment of womxn is intentional and linked to the belief and practice of patriarchy which subjugates womxn at various levels – political, economic, social and cultural. The imposition of masculinity and femininity character stereotypes to the judgement passed by Judge Khampepe entrenches the iniquitous power relations between men and womxn.
Society needs to be conscious of the fact that the behaviour demonstrated by the Jacob Zuma Foundation is not about defending the individual (Jacob Zuma) but a clear demonstration of patriarchal control, exploitation and oppression at the material and ideological levels of womxn’s labour, and sexuality, in the place of work, and in society in general. It is a clear strategy to reduce Judge Khampepe, a female, from power, to deprive “her” of the capacity or strength to do her work, rendering “her” incapable or ineffective as a judge.
As an intersectional feminist organisation, which is guided by rights to equality within the South African Constitution, we support South Africa’s definition of and goals towards achieving gender equality, an ideal that is a fundamental tenet under the Bill of Rights of The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 (Act 108 of 1996). This ideal emerged from a long period of struggle for a democratic society that respects and promotes the rights of all its citizens, irrespective of race, gender, class, age, disability and so on. (Bill of Rights, Sections 9.1 to 9.4).
As an organisation, we recognise the multiple and interconnecting oppressions experienced by womxn through supremacies that include race, gender and class, and seek to promote the enabling provisions for the human rights of womxn and girls as articulated in the Maputo Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Womxn in Africa, the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development, and in alignment with Beijing Plus Twenty and Africa Agenda 2063.
Thus we condemn the behaviour demonstrated by the former president against Judge Khampepe. We call on feminists to stand against such utterances made against her as they undermine what has been achieved in putting womxn in positions of power.
* The views expressed here are not necessarily those of IOL.