I am the first-born daughter of Malusi Shabangu and Nokuthula Gumeda whose love saw them venture to the alluring big city lights of Johannesburg in pursuit of a better standard of living for their nest of 4 children. My parents are my biggest role models as they have proved to me in more ways than one that anything is possible. My dad was from the rural village of Nkandla while my mom grew up in rural Swaziland. Both arrived in Johannesburg with a bare minimum understanding of English but were determined to not fail and reflecting on my life now, they did not! I am a result of their prayers, endless sacrifices and dedication to securing a better life for us. Their love and willingness to always go over and above for us, their children, has seen me enjoy some of the best opportunities that the world has to offer. I look up to them because I know that even if I only ever have half the morals, values, integrity and ethically leadership that they have I would have gained so much in the world.
This is an important part of my identity as my parent’s ferocious faith and determination to succeed come hell or high waters made me out to be a bold little trouper who marked out a lot of firsts for the family. The first “first” being my choosing to studying drama at the National School of the Arts for my secondary schooling. Followed by being the first to obtain a tertiary education graduate degree. I would describe my higher education career in the globally renowned sociological words of–“learning, unlearning and relearning”. The varsity space is a dynamic one and coming into it as the first child in my family to attend university meant that a lot of things that some of my fellow peers coming from a family of graduates knew I just simply did not know. Simple things like filling in my application form, getting my textbooks or looking around for student accommodation became such big and often times daunting tasks. The hardest part however was the unlearning, by this I mean unlearning all the preconceived notions that I had about university. For one, I underestimated how the responsibilities that come with being the eldest from a financially modest family would always be close by and I use the word modest loosely. Throughout my studies I always carried with me the understanding that this degree that I was working towards was more than just a piece of paper, that to my family it symbolised a breakthrough from the vicious cycle of poverty. With that knowledge failure or not finishing on record time was never an option! That being said, I did relearn time and time again about the resilience of the Black child. #FeesMustFall, in its short-lived existence, not only served as a platform to perfectly illustrate and speak to the daily lived experiences and struggles of many poor black students. But it also showed many the strength, perseverance and courage that these very same black students exhibit daily in spite of all the hurdles lined up against them.
People and Systems count on our silence to keep us exactly where we are – Luvvi Ajayi
The global phenomena of the #MeToo and #MuteRKelly movement and in South Africa the nation-wide campaign of the #Totalshutdown are all a part of a growing wave of disruptive noise which is speaking truth to power and shaking the patriarchal structure to its core. More than that, I personally feel that the personal stories that black women have shared went on to prove how the oppression, marginalization and challenges faced on our way to the top always come in three folds. I work in the NGO space and I consider myself lucky to have, for the most part of my young professional career, worked with women. That being said there have been times whereby I was afforded opportunities where I was amongst the few black women in the room. Having my history of coming from a disadvantaged family I did not always possess the pose, etiquette and jargon to navigate these spaces. My normal line of defensive would be to stay silent, unnoticed and pray that this ordeal would be over soon. Now,let’s not get it twisted good people. Let’s not think that this here girl remained silent because she was shy or couldn’t carry herself in a crowd. If anything, I’ve been told on countless occasions that I have got a very dynamic and commanding presence which is friendly and brings a vibrant positive energy to any space that I am in. Having these traits one would think that I would have been able to easily get it together and use them to learn the tricks of the trade in order to accelerate my succession to the top.
Sadly, for a good while this was not the case, reason being, I believed that my being the “first” in my family to attend such conferences, workshops, meetings etc. was some kind of a disadvantage. In the end I found myself comparing myself to other women in these spaces to try and see how I could out do them so as to not seem like the odd one out who hardly had any idea of what they were doing. The honest truth however is that this competitive streak that I had developed was unhealthy because it steamed from a place of fear and insecurity. Fear of not being good enough and the insecurity that since there are so few of us (black women in particular) in these spaces that I could easily be replaced by the next best Ms. Thang.
This fear and insecurity is really crippling and only serves to uplift patriarchies agenda of not having women as part of the discussions at the table but as simple agenda items on the menu. It’s victimization at its best and has feed the ugly beast that is Pull Her Down Syndrome and the refusal of older women’s mentoring of younger women once they have gone against the grain, broken barriers and earned that one (can I repeat!) one hard earned chair at the table.
I was finally liberated of my competitive streak when I started my internship at The Graça Machel Trust. It was during my orientation when I was introduced to the whole staff and sat in on meetings with the various managers that I was hit with the hard reality that my survival of the fittest mind-set was not going to work here.First off the staff at the Trust is largely made up of women so there was no way that I could possibly out compete them all, but my shift in mind-set didn’t come from this. It came from the humility, transparency and security with which the women welcomed me with and worked from. I’ve come to build some strong and solid relationships with many of the women at the Trust and I really give all credit to these relationships to the intentional efforts that these women made to heal my own insecurities and empower me to reach higher.
The manner in which they shared with me some of their deepest truths and life’s hard learned lessons helped me see that my inexperience that came from being the “first” was not something that worked to my disadvantaged instead it is my greatest attribute because my being the “first” has meant that time and time again I have not only fought but advanced in my conquest of doing things that those that came before me in my family could have only dreamed off. My being the “first” has carried me this far,this far being my position as Secretary General of an organisation where I am putting action to my passions and my working at a Pan- African and globally recognised organisation.Regardless of the fear and inexperience that may come with being the first I choose to no longer be a victim of the intimidation of being in some of the spaces that I find myself in. I now know that it is the very same fears and inexperience that come from being the first that make me more than worthy and deserving of all the opportunities that I have access to because in spite of the statistics that are telling of how a girl like me with my background was not supposed to make it let alone be seated at some of the tables I am at I made it and I’m still standing!
Yes, I’m only 23 and I don’t hold any executive position but I do make sure that I am always actively seeking ways in which I can bring up other black women around me because I believe that when we all rise up together in a few years’ time we will find that there will be more of us women seated at the table. When this happens we will no longer have to fight or claw our way up to the top because better decisions regarding the security, well-being and development of women’s lives will be made.
In our celebration of International Women’s Day, I hope that we all contribute to building a feminism that prescribes a healthy dose of collective love because the change, impact and justice that we so desperately deserve will come much quicker when we choose to journey together. Also, may we all find the courage to embrace the broken pieces, stories and struggles of ourselves because it is from these very same places that our power emerges.It is the rising as Victors from these dark places that qualify us as more than enough, more than worthy and more than capable of getting the job done! Finally for those of us who have a seat at the table no matter how young or how insignificant you may think that your position is in the spaces that you find yourself in, may you use your power to go over and above the narrative of just insisting for more representation at the table. Instead can you, through the security of our own value add, pull up more chairs to the tables that you are seated at for our fellow women who are more than deserving, worthy and capable of taking the discussion forward. Aluta Continua, ladies!Because every stride that we continue to make in this struggle will remind us that huntey, the Future Is Female and we will say this louder every single time for those at the back so they too can #MoveWithTheMovers!!!
