Don’t tell us what to wear, ANC women say after dress code spat

LEADERS in the ANC have called for women in the party to be allowed to wear what they like, after an ANC Youth League member was barred from an event because her dress was too short.

Thandi Mahambehlala and Sibongile Besani, convener and co-ordinator of the ANCYL’s national task team respectively, yesterday defended the task team’s spokesperson, Sizophila Mkhize, after she was barred from last week’s national executive committee (NEC) lekgotla for being inappropriately dressed.

Both Mahambehlala and Besani are members of the governing party’s NEC. Mahambehlala said they were dissatisfied and in discomfort over the treatment meted out to Mkhize.

“We believe that the ANC is our home, a home for women and when people look at women in the ranks of the ANC, they should not undress them. We are allowed to wear whatever we want to wear in the ANC and at any gatherings of the ANC,” she said.

Mahambehlala added that their condemnation should not mean that women in the ANC should come to party events dressed like Zodwa Wabantu, the popular entertainer famous for wearing revealing clothes.

She defended Mkhize, saying she was not dressed inappropriately. “The dress was very long in my understanding, not unless the ANC wants us to come as oomakoti abasandotshatwa ngamadoda banxibe izishweshwe eziphel’emaqatheni (newly married women wearing ankle-length shweshwe dresses). We will do that if they want us to,” Mahambehlala said.

She said women in the ANC refuse to be told what to wear.

“We are members of the ANC, we have rights and we can wear our short pants and shorts and come to meetings because it is political ideology that matters the most, not dress sense.

Mahambehlala said women in the

ANC did not want to be looked upon as sex objects. Mkhize complained that she was prevented from entering the venue in Irene, Tshwane, last week by an ANC staff member who said that her dress was too short and told her to cover up.

Besani said: “The ANC has a membership that is free to express itself, therefore, we will not as the leadership of the task team allow a situation where the dress code of young women, and women in general is sexualised.

“We will not condone that kind of attitude, whether it comes from leadership within the ranks or from an individual,” she said.

Mahambehlala said preparations for the ANCYL conference to be held from March 27 to 31 were on track in terms of the task team’s roadmap.

She said the task team had set up conference committees that will meet every Monday at the party’s headquarters at Luthuli House to prepare for the gathering of 3 900 branches, of which a minimum of 70% is needed for the conference to quorate.

Mahambehlala insisted that the ANCYL had enough money to hold its first conference since 2015, despite its mother body struggling to pay its staff their December salaries on time.

“The ANC will contribute to the functioning of the ANCYL and all the leagues,” she said.