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15 March 2022
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Story Rulanzen Martin
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Photo Supplied
The keynote speakers are Dr Khabele Motlosa (right), Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political and Administrative Studies at NUL, and leading Pan-Africanist scholar Prof Molefi Kete Asante(left).
The
Centre for Gender and Africa Studies (CGAS) at the University of the Free State (UFS), together with the
National University of Lesotho (NUL) and the Academic Forum for Development of Lesotho, is hosting an online think tank on the transnational communities of the Lesotho-South Africa border from 19 to 21 March 2021. The theme of the conference is
Lesotho and South Africa: a clarion call for a Pan-Africanist future.
Dr Munyaradzi Mushonga, Programme Director: Africa Studies Programme in CGAS, is the convenor of the conference and is also leading the UFS borderlands panel. The borderlands project is jointly funded by the Office of the Dean: Faculty of the Humanities at the UFS, and the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS).
For more information and to register for the conference, click here
Societal perceptions of women in politics in Cameroon must change
2017-08-30
Prof Lilian Lem Atanga presented a lecture,
Gender, Discourse and Cognition and Implications on
Political Participation, as part of the First Humanities
and Gendered Worlds Lecture 2017.
Photo: Charl Devenish
Women have not internalised the fact that they can participate on an equal footing in politics with men. This is one of the conclusions made by Prof Lilian Lem Atanga in a study of the political participation of women in Cameroon.
“There still is a strong belief that women can’t deliver the goods (in areas such as politics),” Prof Atanga said. According to her, stereotypes were still entrenched in Africa and a lot had to be done to change societal perceptions of the role of women in politics.
Poor representation of women in politics
Prof Atanga, an associate professor at the University of Bamenda in Cameroon, was guest speaker at the First Humanities and Gendered Worlds Lecture 2017. The lecture was hosted by the Faculty of Humanities and the Centre for Africa Studies (CAS) at the University of the Free State (UFS) in the Equitas Auditorium, Bloemfontein Campus, on 3 August 2017. The title of the research fellow’s lecture at the CAS lecture was Gender, Discourse and Cognition and Implications on Political Participation.
She noted that although there had been a marked increase in the political participation of women in Cameroon, it still was insufficient. Of the 24 million people in the country, 52% were women but only 20% of the senators and 31% of parliamentarians were women.
Gender-segregated roles affect participation
And there are many reasons for this. “A lot more women still believe in gender-segregated roles and this affects their political participation.” Many men also don’t approve of women’s political participation.
In her study Prof Atanga found that stereotypes were also emphasised in the way the media in Cameroon reported on the roles of women.