So the Mail & Guardian is launching a women’s website. A website I presume that is written, curated and read by women. A website that speaks to the various concerns of “professional women, working and stay-at-home mothers”, I am told. And while this seems like a fairly benign prospect, the beginnings of what sounds like […]
Talia Meer
Talia Meer has studied political science and development studies in South Africa and the great white north. She is a researcher and gender activist. She is interested in how the social categories of race, class and gender are practiced and articulated in daily life, individual and collective experiences. She often uses the f-word … feminism.
Posted inNews/Politics
Let’s face it, we’re a nation of hypocrites
When we wear the right colour T-shirt and then forget to wear our activist hat when the girl on the street gets harassed. When we’ve been following the news with bated breath because we care about violence against women, but we really want to see if pretty boy goes to lock-up or goes home, or […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Why I will wear black next time
Since the murder of Anene Booysen, I, and I suspect many others in the gender-based violence sector, have felt completely overwhelmed by the multitude of opinions and approaches to gender-based violence articulated in the sector, the media, and in public and private conversations throughout the country. At the research unit where I work there have […]
Posted inNews/Politics
From Slut Walk to One Billion Rising: Losing the protest plot
Following her wildly popular Vagina Monologues, Eve Ensler, the American feminist playwright and activist, has a new campaign, a new activism, a new brand. One Billion Rising. The concept is simple. Motivated by the popular consensus, that one woman in three worldwide — that is one billion — experiences some form of violence in her […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Die Antwoord — are we missing the misogyny?
By Talia Meer As critical dialogues about race in the Antwoord’s ”Fatty Boom Boom” video emerged, I was certain that a gendered analysis would soon follow. I was wrong. While South African commentators have critiqued the use of blackface in the video — UCT’s Adam Haupt deftly contextualises Die Antwoord within histories of class and […]