Who’ll defend a black woman like Madonsela?

“BLACK men have been suffocated by the greed of the corporate structure, the corruption, racism,” said the fictional character Sheldon, in highlighting the experiences of black men in corporate America in the BET hit series, Being Mary Jane, starring Gabrielle Union.

“Does that exclude the black woman?” responded Mary Jane. Sheldon gladly excluded black women from the experiences, which led to a combative argument about the experiences of black women in society.

The spirited conversation between Sheldon and Mary Jane shed light on the hard truths felt about black women and men around the globe, but, as the norm, the male character (as with most males) placed the experiences of black women and the sexism they experience at the bottom of the list of societal abuse or secondary to that of race.

In our country, when one thinks of the polarising dynamic of race and sexism, it is always clear when public protector Thuli Madonsela makes headlines. She has once again been at the centre of the sexism women experi- ence daily where men who fail to argue on her level of competence and intelligence will try to downgrade her by commenting on her looks to accusing her of being a spy.

It boggles the mind when the very men who make such sexist statements towards her will probably be the first to defend women’s honour in August, during Women’s Month, when it is popular to proclaim a non-sexist society.

Black men tend to expect women to show racial allegiance at the expense of sexism, and will use culture and religion, among other patriarchal power codes, to put women in their place. In the case of the public protector, sexist definitions of beauty and politics, rather than the constitutional democratic principles of equality before the law, are used against her to prove that she is, as Simone De Beavouir eloquently de- scribed the status of women, “the second sex”.

Global feminist Gloria Steinem was vitriolic when she expressed this dynamic during the Obama-Clinton 2008 presidential race when she said: “Gender is the most restricting force in life”, hence Barack Obama would most probably win the election (and did).

One has to wonder if it is not Madonsela’s gender that is the restrictive force in the Nkandla saga where her competence and intelligence is being undermined by a male police minister, Nathi Nhleko, and the first citizen. This is nothing new for the public protector, but it really puts the spotlight on the sexism directed at the women who compete on the same level as men – they are ridiculed, called names and undermined.

President Jacob Zuma, the traditional male, undermined Madonsela’s report, hard work and compe- tence evident in her 455-page report by directing it to another male, Nhleko, to second-guess it with his lacklustre 55-page document. His dramatic videos did not help the cause with the comic element it portrayed.

Prior to Madonsela’s Secure in Comfort report on the Nkandla upgrades, even young men from the ANC Youth League saw it fitting to comment on Madonsela’s nose, which had no bearing on the report, democracy or the apparent corruption and lack of leadership evident in the upgrades. The same sexism was sadly evident even from women also through comments on social media.

If, by a stroke of genius, Madonsela was considered attractive by male standards, she would be reduced to being pretty, sexy or attractive when making intelligent commentary in our national political discourse. This makes women unable to win whether they are considered easy on the eye or not.

To rub salt into the sexist wound, Judge Ashton Skippers posed questions as to the powers of the public protector’s office by saying that her recommendations were not binding, which gave the partisan parliament more ammunition to disempower her courage to stand up to the powers that be. Madonsela, as most women experience, surely has been undermined by black and white men (and ignorant women who side with them) using legal and political jargon in a corruption case that should be common sense and pushing the country into a constitutional crisis.

It is clear that in our patriarchal country, law and politics are run by males and when a woman, like Madonsela, has the courage to stand against sexist structures, she is likely to be silenced. Even worse, men have culture and religion to support their sexism and making them lovable beings in their sexist ways.

Then they have partners, usually women, to support their sexism in the name of love. While men are being loved and protected practically by all the structures that make up a male dominated society, we then have to ask: who loves the black woman of the likes of Madonsela?