The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) expire in 2015. They were adopted in September 2000 through the Millennium Declaration at the 55th session of the United Nations General Assembly, convened as the Millennium Assembly. The MDGs, understood to be a global development agenda, focused on poverty reduction, access to education, gender parity, healthcare access, sustainable development […]
Equality
Posted inEquality, General
Racism in SA is real and it matters
By Andrew Ihsaan Gasnolar We have seen the distractions all around us. We have been confronted with a great deal of flash but not much substance: from the protection orders urgently brought (and then discharged), to the newsletters from Helen Zille to the battle between a Chester and Ms Zille. However, this sideshow distracts us […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, News/Politics
Remembering Mandela the feminist
By Ntombenhle Khathwane As a black woman, like other black women, I have it tough. Especially in the world of business, corporate and academia: black women have to work harder than any other, including black men, to gain recognition, promotion or even entry. Since I left formal employment and started building a business, I have […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Rampant racism in the US, the land of the not so free
I recently got my visa to visit the US of A. By recently, I mean three days ago. And as much as I’m excited for this much-anticipated holiday, I have many misgivings. The woman behind the glass at the United States Consulate in Johannesburg looked stern as she asked me if I have reason to […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence
‘I am penis, hear me roar’: The threat of lesbianism
Men seem to labour under the misapprehension that sex is about them. This is not a hastily made statement, there is some evidence behind it. Exhibit A: The idea that men think they’re “putting the D” to or “giving it” to someone. The rhetoric gives the impression that the rest of us come to the […]
Posted inEquality, General, Media
Africa, the dark continent?
By Matthew de la Hey “The world is like a Mask dancing. If you want to see it well you do not stand in one place” — Chinua Achebe Do they know it’s Christmas? Well of course they do. They’ll probably go to church, and then spend the day with their families. I find the […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
The river runs dry: Gender equality in South Africa
In 1789 France’s Ancien Regime, its monarchy and traditions, were swept away by the tide of the French Revolution — only for these laws and customs to reappear some years later. Struck by this, Alexis de Tocqueville remarked that it was as if a river had plunged underground and resurfaced a distance away, the river […]
Posted inEquality
Education reform: Raising the floor or raising the ceiling?
“Wealthy parents choose [private schools] for their children, at least in part, as a risk-management strategy. If you look at the list of successful [private school] alumni, you’ll see some impressive names on it … but for a school that has been producing highly-privileged graduates for many years, it boasts very few world changers. Traditionally, […]
Posted inBusiness, Equality
The death of international development
International development is dying; people just don’t buy it anymore. The West has been engaged in the project for more than six decades now, but the number of poor people in the world is growing, not shrinking, and inequality between rich and poor continues to widen instead of narrow. People know this, and they are […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Can we please talk about the sexism on Matt Taylor’s shirt?
So there’s this scientist, right? And he and his team do something amazing. They land a satellite on a comet. How cool is that?! Possibly the coolest thing since Felix Baumgartner decided that skydiving is too mainstream. But that shirt. Eish, that shirt. The scientist, Matt Taylor, wore a shirt plastered with drawings of semi-naked […]
Posted inEnvironment, Equality, News/Politics
Climate change: We have passed the 11th hour
In 2007, Leonardo DiCaprio — one of the few so-called celebrities in the world who seems to care about matters ecological — produced a disturbing film on runaway climate change called The 11th Hour, directed by Leila Conners Petersen and Nadia Conners. Like Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth before it, it was a wake-up call, […]
Posted inEquality
‘Africans are so simple,’ he said
By Rachel Nyaradzo Adams Not long ago I was in a lobby in a Ghana hotel and overheard a western-sounding white male utter the following assessment to a listener on his phone: “The people in Africa are so simple, I can do whatever I like here. They never challenge me” (paraphrased). Stunned but not surprised […]