Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Categories
UFS News Media Release Research
Years
2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
Months
January February March April May June July August September October November December
Previous Archive
08 March 2019 | Story Opinion article by Prof Puleng LenkaBula | Photo Sonia Small
Prof LenkaBula
Prof Puleng LenkaBula believes that the roles of women become important and productive when the environment within which they exercise their voice, dreams, talents, and knowledge, is supportive.
On the global community calendar, 8 March is marked as the day on which we commemorate International Women’s Day, which evolved as a result of women’s pursuit of equality in the workplace and the associated human rights, civic citizenship, and dignity in the private and public spheres while calling for gender equality.

It is an annual celebration of women’s diverse contributions and accomplishments in the socio-political, economic, environmental, and other spheres.  It emerged from the context where women did not have the right to vote, to participate in elections, and in many societies to own property.  This meant, among others, that women could not shape their lives as they wanted or envisaged, due to the institutionalisation of patriarchy, which is understood as the authority of men over women, and exploitative economic-system arrangements and associated policies. Equally important is that, while the quest for liberty, equality, and human rights were seen as important for democratic societies, it was not seen as important to extend it to women. It was in this context of agitating for equality and the recognition of women as fully human and to therefore be endowed with the cognitive aptitude and abilities to frame their lives, that women organised and protested against these inhibitions.

It was therefore fitting that on, 8 March 2019, we commemorate International Women’s Day with the celebration of 25 years of democratic dispensation in South Africa, where equality, women’s rights, and full participation in political, economic, social, and other rights are generally available, yet still remains contested. It is equally important that we should ask in this year, when the UFS is celebrating 115 years of transforming lives and inspiring excellence through knowledge construction, intellectual formation and dissemination, what we have done or are doing to ensure that gender equality is affirmed in our institution and in our society. How do we promote women’s rights and gender equality at the UFS and in South Africa and what are the challenges we face?  

Do we allow gender equality and women’s talents, knowledge, and voice in all spheres to support the Academic Project in our universities? What are the challenges in transforming systems or exclusion and marginalisation within our own structuring and how do we plan to overcome these? It seems to me that while women’s rights, talents, dignity, and agency are now acknowledged in many of our communities and our society in general, there are still many challenges to transform and fully overcome so that women can constructively contribute knowledge locally, regionally, and globally. How do we create conditions that will enable women and gender-non-conforming people to perform optimally in the core Academic Project, namely teaching and learning, engaged scholarship and research, and to hence thrive as academics or professionals and administrative staff within our universities on the African continent and the global community? What measures do we put in place to facilitate women’s productive outputs and celebrate them through recognition in a world that often negate these contributions?

It may be surprising to the reader that I pose so many questions instead of describing what International Women’s Day is, but it is important to ponder on what systems, institutions, policies, and praxes our societies will need to affirm the dignity of women.

As the UFS community and the broader society, engaging these questions are an important academic and social exercise.  I need to assert that there are many initiatives which the UFS are putting in place to support women’s rights, gender equality, and social justice within the institution. We have recognised the imperative for creating an enabling academic and professional environment that facilitates access and excellence for all staff and students, taking cognisance of the importance of gender equality. We have also recognised that gender equality does not only frame the equality between men and women, but also takes cognisance of the rights of gender-non-conforming individuals as well as individuals who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, asexual, etc. Equally, we have emphasised universal access and support for staff and students living with disabilities in order to ensure that they have access and succeed in their pursuit of education, notwithstanding the continuing requirements to improve our systems and policies in this regard. The portfolio on Institutional Change, Student Affairs, and Engaged Scholarship, for instance, has started to put measures in place that facilitate institutional policy frameworks, advance gender equality, and address impediments to their success, which is often limited by challenges such as sexual harassment.

In 2018, for instance, Council approved the policies on Sexual Harassment and Anti-discrimination, which promotes gender equality and discourages all conduct to denigrate or violate women and men in our context. A high-impact and agile resolution process and team referred to as SART, operates within the implementation framework of the Sexual Harassment and Anti-Discrimination policies. It is an immediate mechanism to address complaints, queries, and submissions on gender-based violence in ways that are attentive to the many calls which women locally and internationally have asserted as important in facilitating gender equality for all staff, students, and stakeholders of the UFS.  We have also decided to provide the University Council with a Social Cohesion and Social Justice Report, which will enable us to evaluate all efforts to promote social justice, social capital, and excellence through co-curricular work in the university.

I must state that these efforts are in line with some of the aspirations and commitments of the International Women’s Day commemorations. It seems to me that the roles of women become important and productive when the environment within which they exercise their voice, dreams, talents, and knowledge, is supportive. I wish all the women of the UFS and in our society a wonderful International Women’s Day. I hope it will inspire all of us in our different work responsibilities to be and do the best we were created for. I further hope that all institutional efforts to facilitate gender equality will come to fruition.

News Archive

Gender bias still rife in African Universities
2007-08-03

 

 At the lecture were, from the left: Prof. Magda Fourie (Vice-Rector: Academic Planning), Prof. Amina Mama (Chair: Gender Studies, University of Cape Town), Prof. Engela Pretorius (Vice-Dean: Humanties) and Prof. Letticia Moja (Dean: Faculty of Health Sciences).
Photo: Stephen Collett

Gender bias still rife in African Universities

Women constitute about 30% of student enrolment in African universities, and only about 6% of African professors are women. This is according to the chairperson of Gender Studies at the University of Cape Town, Prof Amina Mama.

Prof Mama was delivering a lecture on the topic “Rethinking African Universities” as part of Women’s Day celebrations at the University of the Free State (UFS) today.

She says the gender profile suggests that the majority of the women who work in African universities are not academics and researchers, but rather the providers of secretarial, cleaning, catering, student welfare and other administrative and support services.

She said that African universities continue to display profound gender bias in their students and staffing profiles and, more significantly, are deeply inequitable in their institutional and intellectual cultures. She said women find it difficult to succeed at universities as they are imbued with patriarchal values and assumptions that affect all aspects of life and learning.

She said that even though African universities have never excluded women, enrolling them presents only the first hurdle in a much longer process.

“The research evidence suggests that once women have found their way into the universities, then gender differentiations continue to arise and to affect the experience and performance of women students in numerous ways. Even within single institutions disparities manifest across the levels of the hierarchy, within and across faculties and disciplines, within and between academic and administrative roles, across generations, and vary with class and social background, marital status, parental status, and probably many more factors besides these”, she said.

She lamented the fact that there is no field of study free of gender inequalities, particularly at postgraduate levels and in the higher ranks of academics. “Although more women study the arts, social sciences and humanities, few make it to professor and their research and creative output remains less”, she said.

Prof Mama said gender gaps as far as employment of women within African universities is concerned are generally wider than in student enrolment. She said although many women are employed in junior administrative and support capacities, there continues to be gross under-representation of women among senior administrative and academic staff. She said this disparity becomes more pronounced as one moves up the ranks.

“South African universities are ahead, but they are not as radically different as their policy rhetoric might suggest. A decade and a half after the end of apartheid only three of the 23 vice-chancellors in the country are women, and women fill fewer than 30% of the senior positions (Deans, Executive Directors and Deputy Vice-Chancellors)”, she said.

She made an observation that highly qualified women accept administrative positions as opposed to academic work, thus ensuring that men continue to dominate the ranks of those defined as ‘great thinkers’ or ‘accomplished researchers’.

“Perhaps women simply make realistic career choices, opting out of academic competition with male colleagues who they can easily perceive to be systematically advantaged, not only within the institution, but also on the personal and domestic fronts, which still see most African women holding the baby, literally and figuratively”, she said

She also touched on sexual harassment and abuse which she said appears to be a commonplace on African campuses. “In contexts where sexual transactions are a pervasive feature of academic life, women who do succeed are unlikely to be perceived as having done so on the basis of merit or hard work, and may be treated with derision and disbelief”, she said.

She, however, said in spite of broader patterns of gender and class inequality in universities, public higher education remains a main route to career advancement and mobility for women in Africa.

“Women’s constrained access has therefore posed a constraint to their pursuit of more equitable and just modes of political, economic and social development, not to mention freedom from direct oppression”, she said.

Prof Mama concluded by saying, “There is a widely held agreement that there is a need to rethink our universities and to ensure that they are transformed into institutions more compatible with the democratic and social justice agendas that are now leading Africa beyond the legacies of dictatorship, conflict and economic crisis, beyond the deep social divisions and inequalities that have characterised our history”.

She said rethinking universities means asking deeper questions about gender relations within them, and taking concerted and effective action to transform these privileged bastions of higher learning so that they can fulfil their pubic mandate and promise instead of lagging behind our steadily improving laws and policies.

Media Release
Issued by: Mangaliso Radebe
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2828
Cell: 078 460 3320
E-mail: radebemt.stg@ufs.ac.za  
02 August 2007
 

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept