Gender activists and a language expert have accused ANC national chairperson Gwede Mantashe of reducing a serious matter about sexual exploitation of women to a private sexual matter between two people, adding that the language he used in addressing the issue was inappropriate.
Speaking in isiXhosa last weekend, Mantashe told a Newzroom Afrika journalist who asked him about allegations that ANC councillors were demanding sex from women in exchange for jobs, that the journalist should not involve him and the ANC on issues of people who are “asking for a vagina”. Mantashe used the term “isibumbu,” which some people regard as an offensive term for vagina.
In an interview with the SABC on Wednesday, he pleaded ignorance to the ANC Women’s League’s (ANCWL) demand that he should unconditionally apologise.
The ANCWL reiterated its call for Mantashe to apologise.
“Comrade Mantashe should not be allowed to vulgarise our language. Instead of acknowledging the need to apologise, he responded with theatrics, feigning ignorance of the reasons for doing so. This further reinforces his primitive and unrefined allusions to women,” said ANCWL secretary-general Comrade Nokuthula Nqaba.
In a statement issued by the ANC yesterday, spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu said the party and the ANC National Working Committee held extensive discussions on the issue and has since directed Mantashe to offer a sincere apology, "and the matter considered closed".
"The ANC reiterates its firm policy position that women deserve respect, dignity, empowerment and the opportunity to realise their full potential. We recognise that unequal gender and power relations continue to expose women to sexual exploitation, including demands for sexual favours in exchange for employment and other opportunities. Such conduct constitutes a grave abuse of power and must be eliminated from our society.
"Leaders of the ANC carry a heightened responsibility to uphold these principles through their words and actions, confront discrimination and advance gender equality. This responsibility includes communicating with dignity and sensitivity, protecting women from exploitation and ensuring that access to employment and opportunities is never conditional on sexual favours. The ANC remains unequivocal in its commitment to building a society in which every woman can live and work free from coercion, abuse and discrimination," Bhengu said.
Dr Zoliswa Made, a senior lecturer in the department of languages and literatures at the Nelson Mandela University, acknowledged that the controversy around Mantashe’s use of the term “isibumbu” during a televised interview about alleged sex-for-jobs practices raises important questions about language, gender, power and public accountability.
“The issue should not be reduced to whether the word is vulgar; we must also consider the context in which it was used and its implications for discussing sexual exploitation,” she said.
Made said the offensiveness of a word depended partly on its meaning, context, and social use.
Available linguistic sources do not provide sufficient evidence to classify “isibumbu” as universally offensive across isiXhosa-speaking communities, she said.
“However, Mantashe’s use of the term in a national interview about alleged sexual exploitation can reasonably be criticised as crude and inappropriate to the seriousness of the issue. It is important to distinguish criticism of a particular utterance from the stigmatisation of an indigenous language,” said Made.
She said public figures have a responsibility to communicate in ways that uphold dignity and demonstrate accountability, saying informal or colloquial language is not inherently inappropriate, but a discussion about alleged sexual exploitation requires sensitivity and seriousness.
“Mr Mantashe’s framing risked shifting attention away from the alleged abuse of authority towards a crude reference to sexual anatomy.
“The interaction involved an older, senior male political leader responding to a younger female journalist who was questioning him about alleged sexual exploitation. Feminist sociolinguistics encourages us to examine how gender, age, and institutional authority influence communication. The concern is that explicit language about women's bodies may displace attention from their rights, dignity, and experiences of exploitation,” said Made.
Culture, gender and political expert Nomboniso Gasa also accused Mantashe of reducing a serious matter about exploitation to a private sexual matter between two individuals.
Gasa argued that Mantashe, with his experience as a national leader, should understand that he doesn't communicate only to the people who understand his dialect or code, but that some terms he uses in his circle of friends or comrades cannot be broadcast on TV.
“Children are going to hear what he has to say. A lot of parents would not want their children to use isibumbu as a normal kind of word on any given day."
Gasa said Mantashe did not answer the question about abuse of power for personal benefit. He also missed the opportunity to state the ANC’s position on people who abuse power for sexual favours.
“He was dismissive and reduced it to an issue between two people. In the context that the journalist raised the question, it's not two equal people. It’s about jobs, sex for jobs, or favours, and he distances the ANC from that."