HAVING A WOMAN PRESIDENT IN SOUTH AFRICA, WHAT WOULD IT CHANGE?

Ntsiki Mazwai – Artist and Activist, Nomfanelo Kota – Gender Activist , Zubeida Jaffer - Award-winning South African journalist and authorIn his recent column for Business Day Live titled: “Male prejudice against women alive and well” Friedman writes “…The past few days have shown that male prejudice against women is also alive and well among many who would indignantly deny any bias.Evidence of the survival of these biases against women comes, ironically, from an apparent attempt by three provincial premiers to get a woman elected as African National Congress (ANC) president. It is widely agreed that the premiers — of Free State, Mpumalanga and North West — who have suddenly emerged as key influences in ANC leadership politics, are not punting a female president (African Union head Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma) because they are ardent feminists: none has a record of enthusiastically championing women’s rights. As they head mainly rural provinces, they are far more likely to be close to that section of the ANC that wanted to impose the power of traditional leaders on rural women through the Traditional Courts Bill, which would have allowed traditional authorities to impose on rural women rules that discriminate against them. And so it is assumed that they must be pushing for a female ANC president because they are up to something.