/ 19 May 2009

Nothing wrong with this picture

Helen Zille and Ferial Haffajee debate the Western Cape premier’s men-only cabinet. Also read A step backwards

As usual the ANC narrative is shaping the debate on the composition of the Western Cape cabinet. Quotas are their key priority. Service delivery is an inconvenient afterthought.

The media accepts this as a self-evident truth.

The DA does not buy this narrative. We believe that service delivery is the primary consideration in filling positions.

We do not ‘deploy” people to fill positions for cosmetic purposes.

Most DA women in the Western Cape chose to go to the national Parliament, and their names will feature prominently in the top positions of our national shadow cabinet. They are there entirely on merit, not to fill a quota.

In the Western Cape every woman in the DA’s caucus in the provincial parliament also has a top job — ranging from the chief whip to portfolio committee chairs.

None feels hard done by and all understand the logic of the choices we made. None wants to be a token, or get a position on the basis of a quota.

Every woman in the DA knows that quotas are an insult to women who earn their positions.

As for ‘race”, the top 12 positions (including the Speaker and deputy Speaker) are equally divided — six people of colour and six whites. This is not a result of quotas.

It is a result of finding the best person for each job. That is what the voters elected us to do.

But to the ANC, and all its media toadies, quotas must take precedence over every other consideration. Jacob Zuma extended his Cabinet to 62 members (including deputy ministers), costing taxpayers about R1-billion a year, to meet his quotas and repay all his political debts. For the ANC it is only appearances that counts. The substance and content of any job are entirely incidental. Indeed, it is this logic that eventually leads to the failed state. The DA wants South Africa to succeed. The real reason for the ANC’s quotas is that they are a useful fig leaf to disguise the profound patriarchal sexism that is the norm in South Africa.

The DA will increasingly focus on this hidden realm, which men claim women may not speak about.

The DA will address the assumption that unprotected sex with multiple partners is a right.

The DA will address the issue of gender violence, failure to pay maintenance — and all things that lie at the heart of gender oppression in South Africa. And we will continue to focus the attention of bodies such as the Gender Commission on these issues and not let them fall into the ANC’s trap of believing that quotas are the key to solving sexism.

Indeed, every one of the males in my cabinet will do a better job of protecting the rights of women than the multiple and costly structures that have so far miserably failed in their allotted task.