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Intersectionality of womanhood unpacked in UFS Women’s Month webinar

01 September 2020 | Story Nonsindiso Qwabe | Photo Supplied

The intersectionality between politics, feminism, and social justice was unpacked extensively in the Student Affairs Women’s Month Webinar that took place on 25 August 2020. This was the second in a series initiated by the Qwaqwa Campus Student Affairs. Director of Student Affairs, Nicole Morris, said the webinars were initiated to encourage difficult conversations around womanhood in South Africa.

UFS Vice-Rector Institutional Change, Student Affairs, and Engaged Scholarship, Prof Puleng LenkaBula, and renowned businesswoman and media mogul, Carol Bouwer, were featured in the second instalment. Together they unpacked the dynamics of being a woman in modern-day South Africa in the face of the scourge of violence against women and children, as well as the transformation and greater representation of women in both positions and institutions of power.

Challenge the systems

Setting the tone, Prof LenkaBula said society as a collective needed to come together to challenge systems that oppress, mute, silence, and make it impossible for women to become dignified and contribute fully to the society we live in.

“If we are to promote social justice, feminism, ethics, and gendered analysis, we have to ensure that we constantly challenge, rethink, and think again around issues that we feel are withholding women from being fully themselves.”

Bouwer and Prof LenkaBula said the nation is constantly diverted to other issues that are shifting the focus from amplifying voices for the protection of women and children, hence no real change has taken place.

“As someone who began working during the birth of our freedom in 1994, I think back to the elation that we felt at the creation of the constitution. There was so much jubilation about it, but we exported that excitement to the world and talked about what we had attained without practising it here.”

“We continue to create systems and amazing documents as a nation, yet we do not implement the very things that will lead to a point where discussions such as these do not need to take place,” Bouwer said.

Bouwer said the COVID-19 pandemic showed that South Africa had the necessary resources to prioritise gender-based violence, but those in power chose not to.

“As we speak today, gender-based violence has become a national crisis. We talk about the intersectionality between politics, feminism, and social justice against the confluence of the opposite happening. With what happened when the COVID-19 pandemic was declared a national disaster, we’ve realised that we do have the wherewithal to mobilise for action in this nation, and it is the one thing we have not seen our leaders do,” she said.

Part-time feminism will not help

Prof LenkaBula said rethinking feminism was needed to move away from definitions of anti-manhood in order to promote feminist ideals that would benefit the nation as a whole.

“As a feminist, I want to promote the idea that feminists are not promoting the defamation or marginalisation of men or stripping them of their dignity. We are saying that as men and women, no matter our gender or sexuality, we can work together to ensure that we all live with dignity, we all are equal, and we all express our talents, and are able to utilise opportunities that are available to us in fair ways.”

Alluding to this, Bouwer said she hoped to see part-time feminism done away with in the rebuilding of society after the pandemic. “Coming out of this pandemic, may our feminism be transformed by everything that is currently happening. There is a huge injection of pathos happening right now and I hope that it is not a fad like everything else that has happened in South Africa, but that it becomes something that we really embody as we go back to whatever normal is going to look like,” she said.

Qwaqwa Campus SRC Secretary General, Nelisiwe Masango, said the Division of Student Affairs planned the Women’s Month Webinars to discuss topics on issues that affect women directly.

“These programmes are quite insightful and uplifting. They especially encourage young women to see that the revolution is there, it is real, and it is practical. It gives meaning to continue advocating for better and safe spaces for women. Many times, spaces of contestation are male dominated and therefore women have to be empowered to contest these spaces. These engagements must be ongoing or continuous so that we all understand the issues we are affected by and advocate for a better society.”

News Archive

NRF grants of millions for Kovsie professors

2013-05-20

Prof Martin Ntwaeaborwa (left) and Prof Bennie Viljoen
20 May 2013

Two professors received research grants from the National Research Foundation (NRF). The money will be used for the purchase of equipment to add more value to their research and take the university further in specific research fields.

Prof Martin Ntwaeaborwa from the Department of Physics has received a R10 million award, following a successful application to the National Nanotechnology Equipment Programme (NNEP) of the NRF for a high-resolution field emission scanning electron microscope (SEM) with integrated cathodoluminescence (CL) and energy dispersive X-ray spectrometers (EDS).

Prof Bennie Viljoen from the Department of Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology has also been awarded R1,171 million, following a successful application to the Research Infrastructure Support Programme (RISP) for the purchase of a LECO CHN628 Series Elemental Analyser with a Sulphur add-on module.

Prof Ntwaeaborwa says the SEM-CL-EDS’ state-of-the art equipment combines three different techniques in one and it is capable of analysing a variety of materials ranging from bulk to individual nanoparticles. This combination is the first of its kind in Africa. This equipment is specifically designed for nanotechnology and can analyse particles as small as 5nm in diameter, a scale which the old tungsten SEM at the Centre of Microscopy cannot achieve.

The equipment will be used to simultaneously analyse the shapes and sizes of submicron particles, chemical composition and cathodoluminescence properties of materials. The SEM-CL-EDS is a multi-user facility and it will be used for multi- and interdisciplinary research involving physics, chemistry, materials science, life sciences and geological sciences. It will be housed at the Centre of Microscopy.
“I have no doubt that this equipment is going to give our university a great leap forward in research in the fields of electron microscopy and cathodoluminescence,” Prof Ntwaeaborwa said.

Prof Viljoen says the analyser is used to determine nitrogen, carbon/nitrogen, and carbon/hydrogen/nitrogen in organic matrices. The instrument utilises a combustion technique and provides a result within 4,5 minutes for all the elements being determined. In addition to the above, the machine also offers a sulphur add-on module which provides sulphur analysis for any element combination. The CHN 628 S module is specifically designed to determine the sulphur content in a wide variety of organic materials such as coal and fuel oils, as well as some inorganic materials such as soil, cement and limestone.

The necessity of environmental protection has stimulated the development of various methods, allowing the determination of different pollutants in the natural environment, including methods for determining inorganic nitrogen ions, carbon and sulphur. Many of the methods used so far have proven insufficiently sensitive, selective or inaccurate. The availability of the LECO analyser in a research programme on environmental pollution/ food security will facilitate accurate and rapid quantification of these elements. Ions in water, waste water, air, food products and other complex matrix samples have become a major problem and studies are showing that these pollutants are likely to cause severe declines in native plant communities and eventually food security.

“With the addition of the analyser, we will be able to identify these polluted areas, including air, water and land pollution, in an attempt to enhance food security,” Viljoen said. “Excess levels of nitrogen and phosphorous wreaking havoc on human health and food security, will be investigated.”

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