The characteristics and qualities needed for leadership in the ANC have been much discussed by many inside and outside the party, including in forums such as the Mail & Guardian. Never before has an organisation received such wide-ranging advice.
So, in a biblical sense, Kugqityiwe (it is finished). Fortunately for us the best of these qualities are to be found among many ANC women and men. This is because most ANC members and leaders, irrespective of their gender, class, educational background or religion, have attended the same university: the school of life in apartheid South Africa. They have been steeled and tempered in the liberation struggle.
Yet sadly (though understandably) in its 95 years:
- The ANC has been led only by male presidents (I should add that they have done a sterling job);
- No woman has ever been nominated by any official ANC structure for any responsibility other than deputy secretary general — and only since 1994. Interestingly, since then, only women have been nominated, accepted and elected for this responsibility;
- Since 1994 (and never before) there has been only one woman official (the deputy secretary general) out of the six ANC officials;
- Only since 1997 have women constituted at least 30% of the ANC national working committee; and
- The ANC Women’s League — the voice of ANC women, and a champion of the broader struggle for women’s emancipation and gender equality — has never nominated a woman for any position other that of deputy secretary general.
Many reasons exist for this tradition of male leadership and anomaly. The fundamental problem in the ANC and in our society has been and continues to be patriarchy — and its intersection with other forms of oppression and discrimination, based on class and race.
Patriarchy — the ideology and system underpinning the organisation of society based on the ”superiority” of men and ”inferiority” of women — is deeply embedded in all spheres of our lives. It starts in the private sphere — the family — and spreads out through the entirety of the public sphere. It is so pervasive, and so rooted in history, that it is taken as natural and normal.
Patriarchy, like racism, has not scuttled away in the face of democracy. On the contrary, like a chameleon, it has taken on the colours of and adapted to democracy and the current capitalism. Even as the ANC prepares to select its leadership, as a result of patriarchy — which sometimes seems to have a mind of its own, independent of even the highly political minds of ANC cadres — the names likely to emerge for ANC president will be those of men.
Happily, the ANC policy conference earlier this year adopted a resolution stating that there should be a 50:50 balance between women and men in leadership and all other responsibilities. Currently the ANC constitution sets the threshold at 30%. ANC provinces have to be proactive and ensure that at least 50% of their delegations, nominations and (ultimately) elected leaders are women. The numbers are important steps towards gender equality.
It is understood that women are not a universal entity whose interests can be represented by their presence in decision-making structures such as the ANC national executive committee. It is also obvious that the presence of substantial numbers of women in ANC leadership structures does not mean that unequal gender relations are a thing of the past.
But theory and practice both internationally and in South Africa show there is an interrelationship between participation of a critical mass of women in decision-making and the resolution of patriarchal power relations. Because attitudes tend to lag far behind everything else, quantitative changes play a critical role in achieving qualitative changes.
For example, the entry of women into the Cabinet, Parliament and the ANC national executive committee — all traditionally male domains — has not only changed the ”face” of these institutions; it has also fostered, in many different ways, gender consciousness and tentative movement towards the resolution of patriarchal contradictions. These women have contributed to putting women and gender-related matters at the centre of the political agenda and our national discourse, strengthening the struggle for emancipation and gender equality. Some of these women have grabbed the instruments of power and used them to change society, while simultaneously changing the very instruments, male definitions and uses of power.
As former United States congresswoman Bella Abzug put it: ”It’s not about simply mainstreaming women. It’s not about women joining the polluted stream. It’s about cleaning the stream, changing stagnant pools into fresh, flowing waters.”
Transformation of gender relations is not the responsibility of women alone and women’s roles should not be reduced to this. However, in patriarchal societies women are crucial to bringing about that transformation. Getting the numbers right, as the policy conference recommended, is but one step in the transformation agenda. The most important step is placing them where it matters most — right at the political centre, as the president of the ANC.
President Thabo Mbeki has broken from the patriarchal tradition of confining women to the periphery and has propelled them into the centre by appointing women ministers, deputy ministers, directors general, heads of diplomatic missions and so on. The president even shook the social psyche and set a new tone by appointing a woman deputy president of the republic when he had the opportunity to do so — unfortunate as the opportunity was.
As Mbuyiselo Botha (”Women’s rights: Mbeki’s the man”, September 4) aptly put it: ”Greater love has no man for women than one who blows open the doors that lead to equality, self-determination and equal opportunity.”
The president has provided leadership by correctly pronouncing, at home and abroad, on South Africa’s readiness to have a woman president. Many agree. And the country’s woman president can only come from the ANC.
The ANC leads. If the country is ready for a woman president, so is the ANC.
If the ANC is really committed to changing stereotypes about women and transformation; if it is to continue as the trailblazer of democracy; if it accepts that we are all equal and capable ANC cadres; and above all, if we are to bring in a breath of fresh air to the pinnacle of authority, leadership and power in our organisation — then we have to elect a woman president.
Some are talking about 50% women in the presidency. While that is commendable, the national conference does not elect the presidency or the secretary general’s office: delegates elect the president and secretary general of the ANC and their deputies. Different permutations of gender balance in the ANC leadership structures are continuously emerging. Good as these permutations are, the best one is the one with at least 50% of the ”officials”, along with half the national working committee and half the national executive committee, being women — and with a woman as the president. The ”current conjuncture” demands of us to settle for no less.
All that is left is for the ANC Women’s League to play its leadership role in this respect and nominate a woman for president. This can be done by any ANC province or the Youth League, but the Women’s League cannot shirk one of its direct responsibilities. All that such a nominated ANC woman can do is accept her responsibility, confident that she is inferior to no one and, like her predecessors, would be leading the ANC, relying on and supported by an able collective leadership and disciplined cadres. All that the ANC members have to do is discharge their political duty and elect a woman president.
Now is the time. Let us break the chain of patriarchal tradition.
Thenjiwe Mtintso, a member of the ANC national executive committee, the ANC Women’s League and the SACP, writes in her personal capacity