A week ago, the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) held interviews of the four candidates vying for the position of the next chief justice of the Republic of South Africa. And while the body ultimately recommended the only woman candidate, justice Mandisa Maya, her interview was a blatant demonstration of patriarchal violence.
She was subjected to locker-room sexist innuendo, burdened with stereotypes and asked to assure commissioners that she was standing as a judge and not as a woman. Minister of justice and correctional services, Ronald Lamola, did not even bat an eyelid when he asked Maya to give this ludicrous reassurance. But the violence that Maya was subjected to did not end there.
This woman who is serving as the president of the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) and who has held many national and international positions in a career spanning 35 years, was asked: “Is South Africa ready for a female chief justice?”
This question is commonly asked to women who choose to participate politically. During her campaign for the ANC presidency, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma was commonly asked this question. The same question was asked to Dr Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace prize, when she contested for a parliamentary seat in Nyeri, Kenya.
It has been asked of many women – directly and indirectly. Great women leaders such as the vice chancellor of Unisa, Professor Puleng LenkaBula, who became the first black woman to lead the biggest higher learning institution in Africa, have also been subjected to dangerous innuendo that their gender somehow impedes on their capacity to lead.
And of course, no man is ever asked this question. It is taken as fact that men are always ready to lead. It is high time that we deconstruct this narrative and ask this question of men. Are men able to lead? Can countries in the world continue to be led by men?
History provides us with the evidence that all man-made disasters that have occurred in the world have been caused by men. It was men who started all world wars, including the Cold War.
With the exception of Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar, all contemporary global genocides have happened under the leadership of men. From Gukurahundi in Zimbabwe to genocides in Rwanda, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo etc, it has been men’s leadership wreaking havoc. The extremely violent insurgency happening in Mozambique right now is being led by men.
It was a group of men who sat together at the Berlin Conference in 1884 and decided on the partitioning of Africa, setting the stage for colonialism, a system that has wrought incalculable damage on the continent. It was a man called Shaka Zulu who facilitated Mfecane, which led to the violent annexure of land and the deaths and capture of many.
It was a group of men who legislated draconian laws that enabled and maintained apartheid, and the same men who were presidents of the racist National Party from its inception. Men have been the key players in state capture. The outgoing chief justice, who stubbornly supported a Zionist apartheid state, is a man.
The president who masters the art of false promises while our country is on the brink of collapse, is a man. Men have been the cause of the world’s, Africa’s and SA's biggest problems.
Why then are men not required to reassure us that they want to lead because they have the capacity and not because they are men? Why are we not asking men: “Can SA afford to continue being led by a man?”
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