“I find it difficult to answer why the Netherlands is doing so well because what do grades mean? To which countries do you compare?” These are the words of a young teacher, Cees, from the Netherlands. The question he poses is an important one for understanding the complexities in global education. Education is measured according […]
Equality
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Are we freeing our imagination for social good?
Growing up, visits to the public library were the highlight of my month. I would wake up bright-eyed and early on a Saturday morning and spend hours there, always indecisive about which books to take home. And there I’d be, safe and comfortable in this place of wonder and excitement and fantasy. You could hear […]
Posted inEnvironment, Equality
Over the rainbow – voices from the margins of South Africa
Why poverty? In a country where only 8% of the total national income is shared by 50% of the population the problem of inequality persists 20 years into our new democracy. While a quarter of all South Africans live on $1.82 a day the top 20% (10 million people) enjoy 75% of the national income. […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, General, Lifestyle
The powerful politics of love
South Africans have woken up each morning for the past month to the intimate politics of love (and loss) on their television screens and newspapers pages. The death of Reeva Steenkamp and the ongoing trial has placed questions of love and how we love at the centre of the social consciousness. Although unrelated from the […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Middle-class narratives and the disconnect with the poor
In January this year, numerous protestors were killed by the police in service-delivery protests, four of them simply for rising up to demand a most basic right — water. This is a contravention of human rights on many levels and while it sent shock waves through poor black working-class and marginalised communities, the broader middle […]
Posted inEquality
Africa, gay rights and how culture shifts
By Gedion Onyango In a previous post, “Africa: The link between gay rights, chieftaincy and patronage”, I made a sociological analysis of gay legislation status in sub-Saharan Africa, and encouraged more research into the issue. The responses I got were interesting. The commentators’ views broadened my perspectives and more explanations from me are in order. […]
Posted inEquality, General
Biology is not destiny
South African men’s lives have changed remarkably little over the last few centuries — according to the bulk of my undergraduate students. Such an understanding seems common knowledge in the communities from which most of my students are drawn. Since time immemorial, the dominant narrative goes, South African men have “always” been breadwinning heads of […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
The intimate and unbearable shackles of racism
You know this scene all too well: you’re in a supermarket and the person in front of you whispers a racist epithet under their breath. Apparently black shop clerks are to blame for shopping rush hours. Or you stumble into a serious debate where accusations of racism are used as a distraction to shut down […]
Posted inEquality
Have you ever used sex to get something you want?
“What is the difference between a person who actively sells sex and a person who expects drinks or dinner if they are to eventually give someone sex at some point?” This question was posed on a twitter chat held during International Sex Worker Month (International Sex Worker Rights Day being March 3). The social media […]
Posted inEquality, General, News/Politics
Let Zille wear her doek in peace
Twitter and Facebook have given armchair activists access to audiences previously only reachable from standing on crates at political rallies. The newest cause for outrage has been Helen Zille wearing a doek and posing with drie-voet pots. Her pose is reminiscent of black women cooking at a wedding or funeral. The outrage is much a […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Resistant whiteness: On Pistorius, Memela and the dead bodies of women
Sandile Memela recently issued an apology to “countrymen” in the form of Dr Piet Mulder, The Freedom Front Plus, The FW de Klerk Foundation “and everyone who was offended” by his article “Oscar would be a hero if Reeva were a black man”. In the article, Memela questions if Reeva Steenkamp were a black man, […]
Posted inEquality
Africa: The link between gay rights, chieftaincy and patronage
By Gedion Onyango The gay stance between Uganda versus international community is simply a struggle in defining standard international socio-cultural norms in a globalised system. This involves the processes of determining who defines these norms and how these norms should be enforced. It also brings into question contents of these norms and how these norms […]