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Nelson Mandela University Vice-Chancellor Professor Sibongile Muthwa and Dr Brigalia Bam
This message was made clear by the speakers at the recent institutional public lecture by Nelson Mandela University, titled: “When Hens Begin to Crow: Preparing Women to Govern”. The lecture was held in honour of Dr Brigalia Bam, 92-year-old elder, lifelong scholar and human rights activist.
Director of the Centre for Women and Gender Studies at Mandela University, Professor Babalwa Magoqwana explained the title of the lecture was inspired by academic and human rights activist Professor Sylvia Tamale’s book ‘When Hens Begin To Crow”, and by Dr Brigalia Bam’s work in documenting the long journey towards women’s rights and entry into positions of leadership.
The keynote speaker was Dr Brigitte Mabandla (left), a longstanding advocate for women and children’s rights and social justice, who has held several ministerial positions in the South African government.
She said: “In traditional African societies the crowing of a hen was seen as unnatural and threatening, but today we reclaim the metaphor as a reordering of justice. To crow is to lead, to speak truth and to govern with vision and conviction. We have to use our voice to address the structural, governance and economic barriers that women continue to face.”
Dr Mabandla explained that “preparing women to govern” means far more than filling seats. “It means transforming every structure and ethos of power. It means dismantling the social and economic barriers that limit women’s full participation. It must mean creating leadership pipelines that are inclusive and supportive.”
One of the speakers at the lecture was Zingiswa Losi (left), the President of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), who added: “Yes, women are already governing in workplaces, communities and government, but the question is ‘when will society finally prepare itself to accept leadership from women?’
The answer is ‘now!’. We are here to prepare every woman, every girl and every worker to live in freedom, dignity and equality. Because when hens begin to crow the dawn cannot be stopped.”
Dr Mabandla emphasised: “We have to remain in the trenches as full progress will not happen on its own,” said Dr Mabandla. “What does full progress look like?
It looks like a society where girls are not socialised into silence. It looks like rural women accessing land and capital. It looks like community safety plans. It looks like women seeing themselves in government and public office, in the media and in the education curriculum.”
Executive Dean of Humanities at the University, Professor Pamela Maseko elaborated: “A strategic trajectory of our university is the revitalisation of the Humanities, which includes a curriculum that focuses on African womanhood and gendered histories that have been marginalised.”
The Brigalia Bam Foundation Archive is part of this. Established in 2022 and conserved by Nelson Mandela University, it brings to life the legacy of women leaders who contributed to the liberation and reconstruction efforts of our country and continent, most of whom have not been recognised.
In the fight for democracy, Dr Brigalia Bam and many other women used their voices and leveraged their positions in organisations like the South African Council of Churches, showing that faith and resistance could go hand in hand.
Dr Bam’s appointment as Chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission from 1999 to 2011 by former President Nelson Mandela was a deliberate and powerful statement that recognised the indispensable role of women in governance.
During that foundational era, it was struggle stalwart Albertina Sisulu who nominated Mandela to be the first democratic President of South Africa.
“These were not symbolic gestures, they were declarations that women would not merely support democracy, they would shape and lead it,” said Dr Mabandla.
She added that our Constitution was drawn up to support this: “It guaranteed the right to equality and non-discrimination, which included the critical issue of gender-responsive budgeting (GRB), but I am sad to say the lived reality for many South African women continues to be defined by poverty, violence, gender oppression and economic exclusions.”
She explained the South African government committed to GRB in 2019 but in the main this has not happened. The aim of GRB is to ensure that women and men benefit equally from public funds and services. It looks at the level of market participation and unemployment, as well as patterns of involvement in unpaid labour whether in the home, rural areas or elsewhere, and responds accordingly.
An example is the care economy, which, as Dr Mabandla explained, is largely shouldered by women and remains undervalued. Women continue to bear the main responsibility of child and family care, and workers in the care economy earn low wages with few, if any, benefits.
In the rural areas, women often cannot seek work as they have to look after the home. Women suffer the brunt of poverty and government projects need to target them.
Speaker Dr Yaliwe Clarke, independent feminist consultant and the former Director of the African Gender Institute at the University of Cape Town, added that “gender-responsive budgeting needs to make sure that positions which are critical to the healing of our nation, such as social workers – the majority being women - are properly paid.”
Speaker Glancina Mokone, a lecturer in the Department of Public Law at Nelson Mandela University, said: “We have so much legislation that speaks to equality and affirmative action, and yet women continue to be the highest percentage of unemployed. If every piece of legislation represents what we set out to achieve, then why is it that the statistics for gender-based violence, femicide and unemployment statistics, clearly show this is not women’s lived reality?”
In closing, Dr Bam said: “We have to continue this discussion, to speak and talk. We need to create a group of that puts together a paper for the National Dialogue – that presents new ideas of addressing the situation of women, of revitalising our universities and all the challenges we have.
“We have to learn as South Africans to heal each other,” she said. “We must learn to like each other. I don’t feel there is Ubuntu as a way of living, and maybe we all need to go back and look at this value. We cannot achieve what we want to achieve alone, we need to work in partnership.”