Name one thing that Orania, the Afrikaner Whites-only town in the depths of the Northern Cape and the rest of South Africa have in common?
Answer: Both societies have monuments that claim to honour women but in reality, these monuments reinforce common, unempowering stereotypes about women.
In my upcoming book, Orania: Post-Apartheid South Africa’s Bogeyman? I compare two Women monuments in South Africa: the “new” Women’s monument in Union Buildings, Pretoria and the Koeksister monument in Orania. The discussion explores six stereotypes that these two monuments reinforce about women’s role in society. Let us explore the three most common stereotypes:
1. The centre pieces of both these monuments are associated with food and food preparation – a household responsibility that is societally associated with women. The monument at the Union Buildings’ central piece is the imbokodo – a large grinding-stone used by rural women for grinding maize. A koeksister is a sweet and sticky South African treat. It is prepared by deep-frying plaited dough until golden brown and soaking the deep-fried dough in syrup. The centrality of food in these monuments meant to honour women reinforce stereotypes about women and domesticity.
2. In addition to their association with food, these women’s monuments also suspiciously resemble specific female body parts. The Koeksister monument has womanly curves and brings to mind female breasts and hips. Curves are considered a sign of fertility. The Women’s Monument at the Union Buildings resembles the vulva, an “empty” vulva, i.e. a vulva devoid of its accompanying organs – similar to how the grinding stone is empty, when it doesn’t have any grain on it. The monument’s oval/pear shape adds to this resemblance. Subsequently, these monuments ‘implicitly’ depict women in sexualised manner.
3. The third similarity shared by Koeksister monument and the Monument to the Women of South Africa in Pretoria is the stereotypical mannerisms these monuments associate with women, namely gossiping or excessive talking. The plaque attached to the Koeksister monument explains that to “koe” means to gossip. As a monument intended to honour women, it implicitly associates women with the act of gossiping.
The Monument to the Women of South Africa used to include an auditory aspect: a visitor’s physical presence around the monument would activate a series of sound recordings whispering the phrase you strike the woman you strike the rock repeated in each of South Africa’s 11 official languages. However, the monument’s sound as the sound became a nuisance to employees who worked nearby. The switching off of the women’s voices at the Union Buildings because it annoyed “others” is a type of symbolic silencing – women made to “shut up” because their voices are annoying.
Although Women’s Day is not recognized as a public holiday in Orania, both Orania and the rest of South Africa appear to be speaking with a forked tongue when it comes to commemorating women. The words in speeches and on monument plaques revere women yet the aesthetics of monuments objectifies women and continues to perpetuate the ‘feed me, have sex me and shut up’ mentality.
Lorato Mokwena 