In South Africa, a discussion on gender has to include a discussion on race. This is according to Dr Azille Coetzee, a writer and research fellow at Stellenbosch University (SU).
At a seminar on 16 April, Coetzee discussed excerpts from her book, Desire at the End of the White Line: Notes on the Decolonisation of White Afrikaner Femininity, with Dr Anell Stacey Daries, historian and researcher at the SU Centre for the Study of the Afterlife of Violence and the Reparative Quest (AVReQ). SMF News attended the seminar, held at AVReQ.
Dr Azille Coetzee, writer and research fellow at Stellenbosch University (SU), discusses her thoughts on white Afrikaner femininity at a seminar held at the SU Centre for the Study of the Afterlife of Violence and the Reparative Quest (AVReQ) on 16 April. PHOTO: Rentia Weber
Confronting the past
At the seminar, Coetzee spoke about bringing the issue of gender emancipation to “the very urgent and ongoing conversation about what decolonisation requires of us today”.
“It means interrogating the racial categories and inequalities that structure our society, [and] the spatial segregation that still marks our cities and towns. In other words, we cannot separate struggles for gender justice from the labour of racial transformation,” said Coetzee.
Feminism in white Afrikaans culture today
Coetzee also asked why Afrikaans women would “contribute to and invest in a movement that requires one’s own subordination”.
“We see this in many of the women [on] Boer Soek ’n Vrou,” she said. “Women with deep voices and practical shoes, who can take their drink and shoot a buck, but submit themselves prettily to the needs of a boer.”
“We see this in a post-feminist powerhouse like Minki van der Westhuizen,” said Coetzee. “[She] wields great cultural and financial power effortlessly and with flair, but at the same time carefully and consistently presents herself as being a devoted wife and mother first. We don’t need feminism, we are known to say, because we are empowered already. I ask again, why the obedience [to men]?”
Dr Azille Coetzee (middle), writer and research fellow at Stellenbosch University, in conversation with Emily Fitzgerald (left), a masters in Visual Arts student, and Dr Anell Daries (right), historian and researcher at the Centre for the Study of the Afterlife of Violence and the Reparative Quest (AVReQ), after the seminar where Coetzee discussed her thoughts on feminism in South Africa today. PHOTO: Rentia Weber
The first in the series
Daries said that the seminar was the first in a series called ‘Critical Engagements with Histories of Whiteness’, hosted by AVReQ.
“To me, this series is so important because of our current political landscape,” said Daries. “We have to have these kinds of conversations.”
“This seminar interested me into learning who I am as a South African woman born in a post-apartheid South Africa, and how I navigate my identity,” said Enrike Groenewald, a masters in Visual Arts student at SU.
Emily Fitzgerald, also a masters in Visual Arts student at SU, said that Coetzee’s writing is guiding her in her study to redefine her “white Afrikaner femininity”.
Dr Azille Coetzee’s book, Desire at the End of the White Line: Notes on the Decolonisation of White Afrikaner Femininity. Coetzee is a writer and research fellow in gender studies at Stellenbosch University. PHOTO: Rentia Weber