'Innuendos' anger women Ministers

By M.S. Prabhakara

CAPE TOWN, APRIL 16. Women Cabinet Ministers and Deputy Ministers in South Africa have for the first time come out openly against the ``tendency among some male journalists and commentators'' in South Africa of targeting people in public office with the aim of demeaning their stature; and through ``innuendo and insults,'' also of women in similar positions.

Reacting to the comments by a senior journalist on an SABC radio panel discussion last Sunday about the alleged ``womanising'' propensities of the President, Mr. Thabo Mbeki, a statement issued over the weekend by the Minister of Public Service and Administration, Ms. Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, on behalf of all the women Cabinet Ministers and Deputy Ministers said: ``Our concern is heightened further by the fact that the unwarranted attacks, innuendos and insults are also directed at women in positions of responsibility in the public and private sectors. Among the assumptions feeding the rumour mills is the: chauvinistic attitude that female citizens who occupy these posts do so as a result of favours tended to men in senior positions. This is tantamount to accusations of corruption, with terrible consequences for the integrity of women and men in positions of responsibility and, indeed, for their family lives. More critically, it undermines the continuing struggle of South African women and society as a whole to ensure that gender equity becomes the norm in all areas of life''.

This is the latest development in the continuing ``whispers and innuendos'' following the comments during a Sunday morning SABC radio panel discussion on April 8 by Mr. Max du Preez, a senior South African journalist, that the President, Mr. Thabo Mbeki, is a ``womaniser.'' The origin of such ``rumours'' goes back to a letter apparently written by Ms. Winnie Madikizela-Mandela to the Deputy President, Mr. Jacob Zuma, in May last year, dissociating herself from such ``rumours'' spread about Mr. Mbeki's sex life. The letter was leaked to the media in January this year - not surprising given the porosity of ANC and government structures.

Dismissing the description of his remarks by the ANC as a ``declaration of war,'' Mr. du Preez has maintained that ``intelligence community and senior journalists'' had known about such things for a long time. He also referred to an article in the February issue of Noseweek, a satirical magazine modelling itself on Private Eye published irregularly from Cape Town, that Mr. Mbeki ``has, or has had, close relationships with several women who are either in his Cabinet circle or who are married to top officials.''

Another spin that is being given, based on similarly unsourced ``rumours'' and ``widely held perceptions,'' is the suggestion that women journalists who cover Mr. Mbeki's overseas visits also fit into this category.

Irrespective of any political relevance of such ``rumours,'' more central to these is the all-too-evident hatred and envy of the male dominated media in South Africa towards women occupying important positions in public life, in particular the interweaving worlds of politics and journalism.

Nine members of the 27-member Cabinet and seven of the 13 Deputy Ministers are women. Women are assigned not the so- called traditional ``soft'' portfolios like Social Services and Health (which anyway, like any portfolio, are hardly ``soft'') but ``harder'' subjects.

Breaking the glass ceiling has been rather harder in the world of media where even the most competent and brilliant of women journalists, especially if they are black, have to bear the hatred and envy of many of their male colleagues, subtly or not so subtly expressed through sexual innuendos and jibes about being beneficiaries of ``affirmative action.''

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Section  : International
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