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02 August 2021 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Supplied
Prof Maryke Labuschagne, a successful scientist who is doing great work to enhance food security on the African continent, admires women who have made an impact, often in male-dominated environments.

Maryke Labuschagne, Professor in Plant Breeding at the University of the Free State (UFS), is known to many for her work to enhance food security. 

She holds the National Research Foundation’s South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI) Chair on Disease Resistance and Quality in Field Crops, travelling all over Africa to do research on the genetic improvement of staple food crops in communities. Through decades of research and collaboration, she has also contributed to the establishment of a strong network of researchers on the continent.

During an interview in celebration of Women’s Month, Prof Labuschagne talks about her experiences as a young scientist and how she believes young female researchers should be supported and nurtured. 

Is there a woman who inspires you and who you would like to celebrate this Women’s Month, and why?

Besides the scientists she had the opportunity to work with in countries such as Zimbabwe, Zambia, Uganda, Ghana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Eswatini, Tunisia, and Ethiopia, she also met women who are working the fields to produce crops for their families, raising their children, and living in difficult conditions. “These women, who make it work against all odds, inspire me,” says Prof Labuschagne.

Other women she admires and who have made an impact – often in male-dominated environments – include role models from the past, such as former UK prime minister, Margaret Thatcher; physicist Marie Curie, who was far ahead of her time; and American geneticist Barbara McClintock, who won a Nobel Prize in 1983. 

What is your response to current challenges faced by women and available platforms for women development?
 
“When I started working in the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences at the UFS in 1989, it was a different world. It was a totally (white) male-dominated environment. The number of women scientists could be counted on the fingers of one hand, and they were often not given the same opportunities as their male counterparts,” she recalls.

Prof Labuschagne continues: “With women having so many opportunities today, it is now totally different.”

She believes women will always have a double burden – being responsible for a family and having to compete on an equal footing with male colleagues in the workplace. There are now, however, many platforms and support systems specifically for women, and she encourages women to make use of every available form of assistance they can get.

I would say you can have it all. Work hard, believe in yourself, follow your dreams, focus on your goals, see the opportunities – not the challenges, and leave a legacy. – Prof Maryke Labuschagne
 
What advice would you give to the 15-year-old you?

“I would say you can have it all. Work hard, believe in yourself, follow your dreams, focus on your goals, see the opportunities – not the challenges, and leave a legacy.”

She is convinced that young women can have a family and a career, even if they believe it is not possible. 
 
What would you say makes women of quality, impact, and care?
 
“I see many women at the UFS making their mark, making an impact in their chosen fields.”

According to Prof Labuschagne, what would have been unthinkable just a few decades ago, such as women serving as deans and in top management positions, is now a reality. 

“I see young female researchers boldly taking on the world, believing in themselves and their abilities, and knowing they will be successful.” She states that each of these women should be supported and nurtured, as they will have a huge influence on the course of the university’s future.

News Archive

Sites of memory. Sites of trauma. Sites of healing.
2015-04-01

Judge Albie Sachs – human rights activist and co-creator of South Africa’s constitution – presented the first Vice Chancellor’s Lecture on Trauma, Memory, and Representations of the Past on 26 March 2015 on the Bloemfontein Campus.

His lecture, ‘Sites of memory, sites of conscience’, forms part of a series of lectures that will focus on how the creative arts represent trauma and memory – and how these representations may ultimately pave the way to healing historical wounds. This series is incorporated into the five-year research project, led by Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, and funded by the Mellon Foundation.

Sites of memory and conscience – and healing

“Deep in solitary confinement, I read in the Bible: ‘the lion lay down with the lamb … swords will be beaten into ploughshares.’” And with these opening words, Judge Sachs took the audience on a wistful journey to the places in our country that ache from the past but are reaching for a better future at the same time.

Some of the sites of memory and conscience Judge Sachs discussed included the Apartheid Museum, Liliesleaf, District Six Museum, and the Red Location Museum. But perhaps most powerful of them all is Robben Island.

Robben Island

“The strength of Robben Island,” Judge Sachs said, “comes from its isolation. Its quietness speaks”. Former prisoners of the island now accompany visitors on their tours of the site, retelling their personal experiences. It was found that, the quieter the ex-prisoners imparted their stories, “the gentler and softer their memories; the more powerful the impact,” Judge Sachs remarked. Instead of anger and denouncement, this reverence provides a space for visitors’ own emotions to emerge. This intense and powerful site has become a living memory elevated into a place of healing.

After Judge Sachs visited the National Women’s Memorial in Bloemfontein some years ago, he came to an acute realisation as he read the stories, experienced the grief, and saw the small relics that imprisoned commandoes from Ceylon and St Helena sculpted. “It’s so like us,” he thought, “our people on Robben Island making a saxophone out of seaweed, our people carving little things. It was so like us. It was another form of inhumanity to human beings in another period.”

The Constitutional Court

The Constitutional Court next to the Old Fort Prison is also a profound site of trauma and healing. Bricks from the awaiting trial lock-up were built into the court chambers. “We don’t suppress it, we don’t say let’s move on. We acknowledge the pain of the past. We live in it, but we are not trapped in it. We South Africans are capable of transcending, of getting beyond it,” Judge Sachs said.

Transforming swords into ploughshares

Judge Sachs had great praise for Prof Gobodo-Madikizela’s research project on Trauma, Memory, and Representations of the Past. “You convert and transform the very swords, the very instruments, the very metal in our country. In a sense, you almost transform the very people and thoughts and dreams and fears and terrors into the ploughshares; into positivity.”

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