#TotalShutdown, Corruption Watch and Country Duty are some of the advocacy partners that lent a helping hand to the launch on Tuesday. NYU project manager Kgali Kedijang said the platform would give an aerial view of how young black women were still systemically oppressed.
With the vlogs (video blog), it’s a more personal view. We go into various communities and people’s homes to get a sense of how this systemic oppression affects their daily lives in the communities and villages.
“Using multimedia platforms as a powerful advocacy tool, we will generate content and encourage a big conversation to shift social norms towards real gender equality and contribute to the building of South Africa’s feminist movement. We plan to do this by disrupting mainstream media and amplifying the voices that have been silenced in the politics of our generation,” said Kedijang.
The interactive panel discussion featured politicians, diplomats and thought leaders including Gauteng EFF chairperson Mandisa Mashego, DA spokesperson Refiloe Nt’sekhe and ANC elections general manager Febe Potgieter-Gqubule. The panelists debated their organisation’s offerings on the structure and composition of a proposed feminist government.
Potgieter-Gqubule said 80% of women across the world spend their income on their families and homes. “So electing women and having a feminist government will mean that we focus much more on looking at issues that are good for society - peace, poverty, what happens to children, and education. Issues about domestic violence and violence against women are what we are fighting in the party,” said Potgieter-Gqubule.
Meanwhile, Mashego said patriarchy was a global phenomenon, and proposed that every university campus should have a satellite police station. “So if we have to go back to how patriarchy entrenched itself into African society, we can well locate it in the colonial tragedy.
"We insist that every university campus must have a police satellite on its premises so that students are not subjected to pseudo police service.
"We are going to also insist that every public facility must have a social worker because we understand that the 20 million people who live and die in poverty are subjected to extreme social conditions and every time they experience a crime (especially women and children, the elderly and the disabled) they are exposed to a difficult social environment that makes it difficult for them to cope,” she said.
Nt’sekhe said women have always been socially, culturally and politically marginalised by patriarchy. “There are societal norms that need to be challenged and interrogated,” said Nt’sekhe.
