Eastern Cape women honoured
THE heartfelt plea of a Khoisan chief with strong ties to Sarah "Saartjie" Baartman, a provocative message against misogyny from a man, and the rich singing voices of three Xhosa "divas" set the scene for a unique exhibition highlighting Eastern Cape heroines.
"The role of women in the shaping of Eastern Cape history", the exhibition launched this week by Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University's archive exhibition centre, is open to the public until November next year.
Perhaps the main message of the exhibition is that Eastern Cape women have for the most part been excluded from the annals of history. The exploits of men have been well-documented but the stories of women – stories of agency and resistance, marginalisation and oppression – remain untold. It is these stories – dating from the 1700s to today – that fill the 18 ceiling-high panels of the exhibition.
The keynote speaker was Chief Margaret Coetzee-Williams of the Inqua clan, who was instrumental in bringing Baartman's remains home from Europe, and campaigned for her burial in the Gamtoos Valley, where she was born.
Baartman's story fills one panel, telling how her unusual buttocks and genitalia led to her being lured with promises of money to England and France, how she was paraded as a freak show, how she remained feisty despite her circumstances, how she was probably forced into prostitution, how she died young, and how parts of her body were displayed in a museum.
The exhibition is timely, given the controversial comparison of Baartman to bum-flashing Kim Kardashian in the Jezebel article, titled "Saartjie Baartman: The Original Booty Queen", by New York City journalist Cleuci de Oliveira.
The article has been slammed as "preposterous" by Shaheema McLeod of the Saartjie Baartman Centre for Women and Children.
"[Baartman] was exploited; she was taken advantage of … She was treated so badly that she had an untimely death at 27."
In her speech, Coetzee-Williams spoke about the spiritual ties of Baartman to the land of her birth. She said her repatriation to South Africa was a reminder that the time had come to restore the human dignity of all people worldwide, including marginalised groups like the KhoiSan, who are yet to be officially recognised as an indigenous population of South Africa.
The theme of marginalisation was a common thread in many of the exhibition's panels, highlighted in the silencing of perceived troublemakers, like prophetess Nontetha Nkwenkwe, whose popularity saw her being confined to a mental asylum by the government, or trade unionist Albertina Matiwane, who was attacked with knives and bayonets, her face disfigured, for being a black activist in a predominantly coloured union.
In his speech, Verne Harris, the archivist for the papers of Nelson Mandela at the Nelson Mandela Foundation, said Mandela had gone to prison when the term "non-sexist" did not exist and emerged fighting for the rights of women. Among Mandela's reasons for this was that "sitting down and reading made him realise that some of what he had thought in the past was wrong".
Harris said the challenge for a non-sexist South African society went beyond patriarchy or sex, to misogyny (contempt for or hatred of women). "One in four South African men acknowledges abusing women … Where does this come from?
"What does this mean for the legacy of Madiba?"
He said one theory was that boys were groomed by their parents to be heads of homes, providers. "Most grow up not able to fulfil these roles, so they lash out, especially at those dependent on them."
A result of this was self-hatred, transferred to those around them. "This is the power of patriarchy – the power that gives men patriarchal roles they can't fulfil."
He said men and women both possessed masculine and feminine attributes – and it was the work of men and women "to enable men to befriend the feminine".
"Arguably, prison brought out the feminine in Mandela – [he learnt how to be] gentle, caring, supportive … We must work at honouring the masculine and feminine in both men and women."
The exhibition also includes a series of drawings of women titled Looking for myself, by Italian Magda Minguzzi, an architecture lecturer at NMMU, along with press clippings, photographs and sculptures, and exhibits on loan from the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum. - Nicky Willemse
