Bubblegum Club

Tag: feminism

  • A Womxn’s Dis-ease // reframing ‘disease’ and unpicking the frameworks of cis-heteropatriarchy

    A Womxn’s Dis-ease // reframing ‘disease’ and unpicking the frameworks of cis-heteropatriarchy

    Walking into the side entrance of The Point of Order (TPO) I am greeted by varying colours of fabric cutoffs stitched together. Camouflaged between these, are the words ‘DREAMS THAT MY BOdY’ – an impactful introduction to the Masters exhibition by Chloë Hugo-Hamman titled A Womxn’s Dis-ease.

    Walking between her works that are installed on either side of the exhibition space, I move excitedly to where she has set up camp on the other end of TPO. Sitting on a beanbag, surrounded by textiles of all colours and textures, Chloë greets me, a small stitching project in hand. “That looks like so much fun,” I comment. “Yes. It’s like a kind of meditation,” she replies. This opening fittingly welcomes my first question about fabric as her medium of choice.

    “I am very interested in textile. I love colour and texture,” Chloë explains. Soft, cosy fabrics appeal to Chloë’s eye, with these present throughout all the work that make up the show. Her specific hand stitching technique allows for her to work with the irregularity of the fabric, creating volumes that play on the textures of the reused fabrics. Her stitching, when viewed closely, also resembles veins, making a connection to the importance of depathologising bodies and ways of navigating the world. Letters are cut out of old t-shirts, and these are used to make up the words accompanying the visual pleasure of shades of red, pink, purple, yellow and blue that have been threaded together. This brings to the fore the interrogation of language within this exhibition.

    “I made the words first. I was thinking about which words I want[ed] to incorporate into this exhibition.” Once these were created, Chloë was able to decide which words would be placed together, forming juxtapositions and dynamisms, and asking viewers to think about the tension that these groupings of words hold.

    ‘cHrONic SUPPOrT CaRe’ is once such grouping. This speaks to the lack of support and care in the world for what it means to have a chronic illness, and the need for that care and support structure.

    “Chronic means that you will have it all your life, and unless you can afford the care – and even if you can afford it – it’s not really available in the way you need it. What I mean is that even if you have the means to access medical care, that care is prescribed by a largely Western medical framework, which is very much about responding only to the display of specific symptoms. If you don’t display the symptom, you won’t get diagnosed. And then there is the whole thing of language, because if you can’t articulate what your experience is using specific words, then you also can’t get diagnosed. But a Western medical diagnosis is also generally lacking, in that it is very seldom holistic in its approach to understanding the physical and psychic body. Then, as a womxn, it impacts further because of the patriarchal structure of [Western] medicine. A lot of the time you are dealing with doctors who are men, and their experience of the world is different to yours as a womxn. Their experience of violence and pain (and of how these can be projected and/or enacted onto a womxn’s body) is different, and often, as a womxn, you aren’t really heard or taken seriously. Your agency is compromised or negated. I am not implying that men do not experience mental illness or systemic violence, nor am I implying a stable categorisation or binary of gender as man and woman. Rather, I am pointing to the violence and therefore the pain implicit in a womxn’s patriarchal gendering. Which is also why I, like many other feminists, choose the convention of writing womxn with an ‘x’ as a strategy of disentangling ‘woman’ or ‘women’ from the subject-position of ‘man’ or ‘men’, and to consciously destabilise all rigid, violent and exclusionary gender categoristions.”

    Following this train of thought is the idea of establishing alternative communities of care or “new forms of sociality”, a point Chloë takes from Ann Cvetkovich (2012), who is a seminal referent in her Masters. This asks the question, how can we create spaces and methods of care that are genuine, and provide a sense of safety, relief and understanding?

    Continuing with the interrogation of language and the Western patriarchal biomedical framework for wellness and disease, is the work, ‘Sponsored by’. Taken from old t-shirts produced for corporate funded charitable activities, clusters of the words ‘sponsorship’ and ‘sponsored by’ are stitched together. In our discussion, Chloë comments on how most of these t-shirts were pointing to sponsorship for events related to breast cancer, with pale pink being the colour that is used to visually represent this. She points out the irony of these t-shirts, as the companies that sponsor these events sometimes have products or engage in practices that are carcinogenic. “And that was interesting for me in how it brings together a lot of my interests: big pharma, Western medical-industrial complex, symptom, labels, gender and feminism. Breast cancer is symptomatic for womxn, but it’s also so symptomatic of this capitalist system we live in. And also the fact that these t-shirts just have to be this baby pink! …it’s a kind of pink-washing!”

    As briefly mentioned earlier, deconstructing processes of labelling in the way in which language is embedded within patriarchal structures of power presents strongly in the show. In the exhibition’s title the word ‘disease’ is re-framed as ‘dis-ease’. This is an empowering reworking of the English language, and draws attention away from the idea of the individual as the problem. It instead makes a larger commentary on the way in which the world operates. “It is less about ‘I am diseased’, more of ‘I have a dis-ease in the world’. The world that we live in is very fucked up, and you are meant to be or look or act a certain way; and if you aren’t that way you feel a dis-ease.” This ‘dis-ease’ can manifest in various ways, and Chloë’s focus is around mental illness.

    A Womxn’s Dis-ease stitches fabric together to unpick neoliberal, white supremacist, imperial-capitalist, cis-heteropatriarchy.

    To keep up with Chloë’s practice follow her on Instagram.

  • Multimedia artist Ruth Angel Edwards on tracing and revealing the “sub” in culture.

    Multimedia artist Ruth Angel Edwards on tracing and revealing the “sub” in culture.

    Ruth Angel Edwards is a multimedia artist whose work explores the communication of ideology through pop culture, drawing from mainstream and subcultural youth movements both past and present. Within these, she looks at the ways audio and visual content are used to manipulate an audience and to disseminate information. This is especially apparent in her exhibition High Life/Petrification shown at the À CÔTÉ DU 69, which marked the end of her residency in Los Angeles, CA. In this exhibition, social detritus collected from the location reveals a mythologised Venice Beach as a “ritual site of pilgrimage, a space where diverse subcultural histories continue to make it a mecca for fans of alternative histories as well as touristic voyeurs.”

    Feminism, gender, collectivity and commodification are recurring themes. In particular, this brings to mind Edwards’ exhibition Enema Salvatore, held in Turin at the end of another art residency, showing new work at the Almanac Inn. The work questions the binary structures of western culture, the duality of good and bad. A cycle of ingestion, consumption, digestion, purification – and then finally – release, all explored through and within her own female body, whilst drawing external parallels to the “wellness/feel good” food industry. Hedonism, spectacle and rebellion are deconstructed and re-formed to create communicative and insightful immersive works.

    Edwards has been expanding on these themes in her most recent exhibition Wheel of the Year! EFFLUENT PROFUNDAL ZONE! commissioned by the Bonington Gallery as the first exhibition of 2018. An immersive installation invited the viewer to consider the inescapable cycles of waste and decay, a by-product of all our consumption, personal or material. Drawing clever parallels between overlapping ecologies – “from the futile pursuit of personal purification and ‘clean living’ to the increasingly rapid turnover of cultural content in the media and popular consciousness, to the wider perspective of the waste which is polluting our oceans, and threatening our very existence”– Edward’s makes the observation that the only difference is that of differing scale, and utilises art’s ability to evoke empathy and re-orient our often very narrow-minded subjectivities.

    Using video, audio, sculpture, performance and printed media, subcultures and social debris are historicised, tracing their trajectories and examining the wider socio-economic environments which give rise to them. Edwards traces the complex symbiotic relationship between the underground and the mainstream, while exposing their failures and flaws as well as any under-celebrated histories and latent positive potential. Edwards continues to explore personal cycles of consumption and waste, natural functions that are transformed and inescapably politicised as they connect with global capitalist economies.

    Ruth Angel Edwards studied Fine Art at Central Saint Martins and currently lives and works in London. Her work has been exhibited in the UK and internationally at Arcadia Missa Auto Italia South East, Tate Modern (London), FACT, Royal Standard (Liverpool), Human Resources, (Los Angeles) and MEYOHAS Gallery, (New York).

    Be sure to check out her website to see more of her work.

  • Pussy Party Politik

    It’s dark and warm in the sweet sweat-scented nightclub. Exclusively female and femme-identified DJs stroke the decks — a sonic pleasure patrol, an Empress insurrection. There’s a Hello Kitty pussy-cat vagazzling the DJ booth, backlit by velvet and a lick of pink lighting. Think Pussy Pride. Pussy Play. Pussy Power. Pussy Party. It’s a story about how femme bodies might take back the dancefloor.

    Pussy Party pops off every second Wednesday of the month at Kitcheners, offering a platform in which femme DJs and artists can “practice, incubate, exchange and expose”. The organisers describe it as“an experiment in amplifying feminine energy on the dance floor”, an act of “yielding beyond the gender binary”, a femmeditation. In a thickly and narrowly-defined masculine industry, Pussy Party has sought to nurture and celebrate young female and femme-identified talent: each party is preceded by a three-hour workshop for aspirant femme selektas.

    Three months in, Pussy Parties have boasted a fierce line-up of femme foxes: SistaMatik, FAKA, Lady Skollie, DJ Doowop, DJ Mystikal Ebony, LoveslavePhola, and Lil Bow.  But the curators, creators, and dancefloor equators behind Pussy Party are DJs Phatstoki and Rosie Parade. Rosie Parade (AKA Coco) is part of Broaden a New Sound, music curators for Kitcheners.

    ‘When we arrived at Kitcheners, in 2009, courtesy of Andrew the DJ, there was nothing. There wasn’t 70 Juta. There wasn’t Smokehouse. Nothing was happening at Alexander Theatre. Kitcheners was a dive bar. I had my 21st birthday here at a time when what is now the bathroom was the office, when Great Dane was just an empty hall. Initially Kitcheners was the type of venue anyone could book. Butin late 2014 we were conscious to say ‘Okay, what’s happening to the space around us? What’s happening to the club? What’s happening to the dancefloor?‘

    Phatstoki (AKA Gontse) is a music mixologist and penetrating photographer, whose artistic raw material has been gathered through a lifetime of traversing city, suburb, village and Soweto, where she now lives. Phatstoki’s fluid audio-eclecticism resonated with Broaden a New Sound, whose mandate has been to curate genre-bending, and in this case, gender-bending night-spaces. ‘Phatsoki’s had this series of mixes called Boobs and Honey ’Rosie Parade remembers. ‘Boobs and Honey! Those are literally like my top two things (laughs) ’The two groove goddesses, Rosie Parade and Phatstoki became reciprocal fan-girls, teaming up to create what is now Pussy Party.

    ‘I remember walking through the club and being approached constantly’, Rosie Parade says, ‘being pressurised constantly by men.’ Whether a baggy hoody, or a tight skirt, or a long dress — each garment is re-imagined as the self-same solicitation. And so, femme bodies are propelled through a current of pull—stroke—squeeze—clutch. The crowd become an excuse to make the brash laying of hands appear accidental. And the dancefloor — ‘Hey baby’ — becomes — ‘You look like a million dollars’ — an exercise — ‘I like your…’ — in carving out space and protecting one’s borders. Just the presence of a woman in a nightclub, particularly if alone, can be read as implicit consent for all manner of invasions.

    Then there are those femme bodies that outwardly supersede gender circumscription. Courageous, embattled bodies living dangerous, defiant and godly in a beyond-binary space — whose bodies are cowardly read as provocations to violence.  As Desire Marea of FAKA once told me, a proximate dance might result in a punch to the face.

    ‘Looking at the dancefloor’, Rosie Parade explained, ‘there came a point [where we as Kitchener’s management thought] ‘Okay there’s a lot of guys. Women [and femme-identified men] are telling us that they feel unsafe. That’s not a positive club environment. I’m privileged that the management and staff at Kitcheners trust and respect me. So it’s about ‘What do I have that I can use?’ And for me, this space, and these people, this is what I have that I can use’

    ‘Maybe’, says Phatstoki,‘there’s a space for women/femme energies to actually own the dancefloor — not just necessarily own the dancefloor so that guys can hang around, but own the dancefloor ‘cos we actually wanna party, for us. We are the party, so can we actually be given the space to do just that.’

    Go to an instalment of Pussy Party and you’ll still find many men. ‘To be quite honest I don’t think femmes want to exclude men’ Phatstoki says. ‘We just want some goddamn respect! Maybe this is a way we can teach them. Ya’ll are more than welcome, but ya’ll need to know what this party is about. If you don’t like it, by all means [leave]… if you wanna appreciate our efforts and party with us, please do…’ But understand that ‘it’s not your night tonight, you know’.

    True to its name, Pussy Party, in monthly cycles, sets out to be a place of warmth, and pleasure — to cradle and excite us. It changes its shape to let us in, remoulding the club-space into a femme-positive experimental sanctuary. It can ache for us. It can be potentiallylife-giving. But, as with any pussy, right of admission is reserved. There are pre-requisites of respect, appreciation and recognition that Pussy Party is grappling with enforcing.

    ‘Actually’, Rosie Parade says,‘what’s been simple is: put women behind the decks, or femme-identified individuals behind the decks [and] the femmes in the space respond. Tell people that it’s a space for femmes and honeys will come through’.

    Both Rosie Parade and Phatstoki know that this is the awkward, messy, beautiful beginning — of a movement to disrupt club cultures. ‘It’s still marginalised. You couldn’t do this on a weekend. We’re mid-week and we’re mid-month. It’s not payday weekend’. 

    They also know that Pussy Party, as it stands, attracts a particular, pre-defined Model C, middle class. ‘But [for this space], this is how it starts’, says Phatstoki. ‘I want to bring these issues up, and depending on how we address them, that’s when I’ll know if we’re serious about the movement or not. [We need to make sure we] don’t forget those who go through the most [regarding this subject].’

    The Pussy Party agenda aspires to openness. ‘Come through and tap us on the shoulder and say what’s up. This is the night to come through. If you have a problem coming through, tell us about the problem. I think you need to admit where you’ve gone wrong and made mistakes ’Rosie Parade says. ‘Openness. That’s a big part of a femme party’, Phatstoki adds, smiling. ‘That flexibility. It can stretch’, laughs Rosie Parade, ‘and it can shrink. It can self-lubricate’.

    10082016 FBC

  • The Foxy Five – Women forging intersectional footholds

    Staccato stabs erupt between creviced creases of the mountainous form. Backlit by blue skies, institutional columns stem forth. Symmetrical colonial stone is foregrounded by five womxn. The iconic campus of tertiary education was the site of recent student protests – a rupturing ripple that will resist all forms of erasure. The figures stand armed, in formation. Assault rifles extend from arms held high. Donned in a uniform of 70’s chic – highwaisted trousers and cropped shirts. These are The Foxy Five. A living legacy.

    Jabu Nadia Newman is redefining the terrain of identity politics in the South African context. As born-free filmmaker and founder of the The Foxy Five she has created a web series that fictions the narrative of five womxn who stand at a metaphorical crossroad – the ideological intersection between race, gender, class, sexuality and other axes of power and oppression.

    She says, “I’m interested in showing a new view of what it means to be an African, while being open to the fact that I’m still figuring it out for myself” In this way, the discourse around identity politics is emanating internally – dismantling prescriptive external boundaries.

    In depicting the lived experiences of five womxn – expressed visually through Womxn We, Blaq Beauty, Unity Bond, Femme Fatal and Prolly Plebs – Newman reclaims the space of representation – a crucial element in redefining and exploring nuanced conceptions of identity. Shifted modes of power are used in this Post-Colonial context to reimagine an alternative to a white-washed historical narrative.

    Using the rhetoric of intersectionality and “Africa for Africans” The Foxy Five march on. A powerful stance is struck; their gaze meets you head on. An assurance in position is executed with military precision. You are left only to stare down a barrel of a gun.

    “This time we’re gonna make sure we’re the ones running the shots”

    Watch episode 1 of The Foxy Five below.

    1 J.Hunkin. (2016) Janu Nadia Newman: Intersectionality with a side of pop culture. Between 10&5 http://10and5.com/2016/06/16/jabu-nadia-newman-intersectionality-with-a-side-of-pop-culture/

     

  • Sun and self-love; For Black Girls Only

    City life breeds cynicism, after attending event after event, countless nights in clubs, exhibits en masse and even the odd lecture, new events, alternative spaces and new movements can be received with skepticism. For Black Girls Only is a new and necessary addition to what is offered as fun in Johannesburg. It may not boast what jaded Joburgers may be accustomed to in terms of entertainment or alcohol availability, but it is revolutionary.

    A public space, where black women can share in public what has only been conferred and experienced in private; Sisterhood. The Sunday sun blazed and brown skin beamed. All around and everywhere to be seen, was black woman, beautifully shaped and come to commune with her kin. Picnic baskets and brown children sprinkled the scene and there was some sensual music to be swayed to.  A marvelous occasion unfettered by pettiness and pretence, providing a unique opportunity to share black femininity in a sweet setting. May there be more.

  • Women’s World Wide Web – Reviewing SA’s Feminist Movement in 2015 

    While it may be true that over the years certain features of the multilayered feminist project have been incorporated into laws and institutional structures, the emergent new wave expands on feminist ideals via new and varied avenues of protest against heteropatriarchal norms and values. In the South African context specifically, and across the globe more generally, collaborations between women; as well as their insights, information and imagery being distributed online, is evidence of a form of feminism that is increasingly innovative for its character of being part of everyday public life. As will be discuss in this essay, this new feminist project goes beyond institutional ideas of equality by engaging with the specific experiences and struggles attached to the female body and psyche through globally accessible online spaces.

    Internationally, a formal emphasis on gender equality and women’s empowerment policies can be seen through happenings such as the African Union’s declaration on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment, namely, the “African Women’s Decade 2010-2020” as well as popular actress Emma Watson of Harry Potter fame being appointed the United Nations’ new Goodwill Ambassador in 2014, focusing specifically on women with UN’s gender equality HeForShe campaign.

    These are instances indicating that a macro level emphasis on gender equality is far from dormant. It is however important to note that there have been continuously evolving renderings of feminist movements (the plural needs to be emphasized as not all feminist groupings are able to speak to all experiences of womanhood) on more micro-levels, particularly sparked by technological changes in the platforms women use to articulate their presence in society. While women may not be burning bras, they are certainly igniting a new kind of fire amongst themselves – in some cases even getting rid of their bras as seen by the #FreeTheNipple campaign.

    During an interview with poet and activist Lebohang ‘Nova’ Masango, she spoke to how what defines this upsurge of popularized feminism is its digital dimension. Social media has allowed for a proliferation of varied circulations of female realizations and representations. The internet has opened doors to new platforms on which women can articulate themselves, as well as allowing for a larger sense of community. As explained by Nova, “People are not afraid to self-identify as feminist anymore”. Of course, this popular embracing of women power is not only a result of internet connectivity but can also be attributed to celebrities like Beyoncé using her iconic status as a platform to advocate for a new brand of feminism, albeit mainstream. And perhaps this is what is new about feminism – it is no longer perceived to be a movement for marginalized female intellectuals, queer activists, or other such ostracized communities.

    While Nova makes mention of the controversy around Beyoncé as a feminist figure given her irrefutable connection to both capitalism and consumerism (something that feminism as a political and social ideology is irrevocably at odds with), not to mention that for many men she is the ultimate sex symbol, the importance of her ascribing to the feminist label goes beyond semiotics. In sum, as an immensely talented, hugely successful business woman, she has made it clear to the world that feminists do not have to be frumpy. “You can be sexy…You can be married and have a career and whatever, you know,” says Nova.

    Award-winning Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, has also been an inspiration for the recognition that women can care about what they look like as well as be taken seriously in any chosen field. There is a strong emphasis on the need to encourage and celebrate women’s ability to play more than one role at a time. The article On smart women being ‘hot babes’ written by Simamkele Dlakavu sums this up aptly in which she states that a woman looking after herself “goes beyond the aesthetic, it is a political act…”. Another woman who is the epitome of women’s ability to be successful in multiple roles is South African novelist Lauren Beukes. She is an award-winning, internationally best-selling novelist who has written some of South Africa’s contemporary greats including Zoo City and her most recent book, Broken Monsters which won best adrenaline novel in American Library Association’s 2015 Reading List for adult fiction. She in addition to this writes comics, TV shows and films. Her documentary Glitterboys & Ganglands about contestants in South Africa’s biggest female impersonator pageant won Best GLBT Film at one of the largest black film festivals, the San Diego Black Film Festival in 2012. Her work is injecting a strong female presence in genres that are heavily dominated by men.

    The intersectional nature of women moving purposefully is a clear foundation of this contemporary feminism, where groups are coming together to address issues related their own experiences of womanhood, as it intersects with other experiences.

    The Feminist Stokvel is one such example, where eight accomplished black women came together in 2014 with the aim of creating a “safe and nurturing space” for black women’s voices to be paramount.

    Danielle Bowler, Kavuli Nyali, Lebogang Mashile, Milisuthando Bongela, Nova Masango, Panashe Chigumadzi, Pontsho Pilane, and Wisaal Anderson are the founders of the Stokvel. They have focused on the politics and pain around natural hair. As one of the founders, Nova explains that this is because “we [black women] have so much pain, trauma and shame attached to our hair”. In September the collective hosted The Feminist Stokvel Hair Soiree: Dem Baby Hairs in which women raising black children were invited to discuss and get advice on how to nurture their children’s’ hair. This was in recognition of the fact that the hair of black women is problematized from a young age when girls are instructed by schools on what hairstyles are appropriate. Flowing from their own experiences, their aim was for black hair to be an entry point through which other issues experienced by black women may be discussed.

    This is an example of the zooming in on specific female experiences, as well as an attempt to re-define dominant ideas related to physical appearances. The platforms created by the collective pays long-overdue attention to experiences and evaluations of black hair and uses this as the medium through which to affect solidarity, self-love and self-appreciation. This is an example of gendered and racialized realities intersecting and being given a voice through the efforts of women working together – reclaiming the black woman’s body and allowing her to cultivate positive views about herself through a community of women on the same path.  On their blog and Instagram page, the use of weekly hashtags such as #wwlw (Women We Love Wednesdays) and #FSFridays (Feminist Stokvel Fridays) are some of the ways in which they celebrate the achievements of their members as well as recognize the work of women more generally. These posts emphasize their attempt to expand definitions of beauty and to highlight women’s success at performing multiple roles. It also connects their work to the role that the internet and social media play in contributing to a feminist project.

    While the use of the internet to extend feminist activism and to aid the possibilities for collaboration has been around since the ’90s, contemporary digi-feminism or cyber-feminism has progressively been taking on a more provocative nature. The ever-increasing use of social media and proliferation blogs and websites, and the production of digital art confronting and challenging power relations and gender imaginaries are all evidence of support for platforms used to critique hetero-patriarchal ideas and spaces.

    A controversial and hugely popular campaign, #FreeTheNipple, protests the double standards women face regarding how their bodies are perceived and the censorship of their bodies. This campaign relies on women uploading images of exposed breasts. Celebrities and female MPs have participated in the campaign which aims to desexualize breasts. This campaign is turning traditional body politics on its head by arguing that all bodies should be protected and embraced. In doing so, the participants are advocating that holding onto notions related to heteronormativity are not only irrelevant but increasingly dangerous as they are used for the justification of physical and emotional violence, human rights abuses and exploitative beauty marketing campaigns.

    In her video Afro Cyber Resistance, French-born and Johannesburg-based online artist and activist Tabita Rezaire questions the democracy of the internet by stating that it is a “colonized space”. She addresses the representation of marginalized identities within larger internet structures such as search engines, highlighting that “the internet is a space for sharing and disseminating information. And whoever controls this flow of information has power”. In response to this, she approaches the internet as it were a site of resistance, participating in the information that is uploaded online, and actively claiming internet space with contemporary and evocative digital imagery.

    South African photographer Zanele Muholi’s latest book, Faces and Phases 2006-2014, contains portraits of queer black women is another instance of the fight to ensure that all bodies are permitted visibility in the public domain. The book was launched in December 2014, in conjunction with the 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children campaign. It is comprised not only of gripping portraits of black women identifying as gay, lesbian, transgender or intersex, but also includes testimonies and poetry, allowing readers to see these women as more than just visuals, human, rich characters with even richer lives and histories. Same Mdluli in his article on Muholi’s book describes it as a heterogeneous collection of stories challenging what is perceived as ‘normal’ in terms of sexual orientation”. Jody Brand’s CHOMMA also offers a visual commentary on South Africa’s street life and gender-bending. She confronts the viewer with photographs that interrogate gender and sexuality stereotypes. Much like Rezaire is challenging the oppression of digitized spaces in her work, Muholi and Brand’s photography challenges ideas around heteronomativity, each one of them confronting ideas about spaces and faces in their own way.

    Movement around issues of gender, race and power points to broader social, as well as economic initiatives where women are breaking barriers socially as well as making an impact on popular culture trends. The Other Girls is one such female collective that has Jo’burgers planning their social lives around The WKND Social. Inspired by New York’s brunch and laidback daytime party scene, Thithi Nteta, Nandi Dlepu, Vuyiswa Muthshekwane Nothando Moleketi and Tumi Mohale launched The WKND Social as an innovative way to get people to explore the different parts of the city through “Good Food. Good People. Good Music.” Held at different venues on a monthly basis, it is a refreshing and brave alternative to parties and events being primarily hosted and promoted by men.

    Speaking about bravery, Cape Town based jewelry designer Katherine-Mary Mary Pichulik came out with a new jewelry series called Brave Women. Using portraits and videos of women wearing her accessories, she aims to highlight how these women “create, make and do in spite of their fears”. The most recent woman to be featured in her series is Talia Sanhewe, award-winning reporter, entrepreneur and founder of her own production company. Similarly, Vusiwe Mashinini, started her own production company when only but 23, called VM Productions, and with the aim of opening up a space for women in the male-dominated media production industry, Mashinini employs women with a variety of skills relevant for her company.

    Female musicians, and rappers particularly, are also making their presence felt within the always developing hip hop scene. Ntsiki Mazwai, Yugen Blakrok, Miss Celaneous, Dope Saint Jude and Gigi Lamayne are some of South Africa’s female rappers who have been adding new flavour to the male-dominated rap scene. Mazwai stood up for herself and fellow female rappers in her open letter titled “Dear Brothers in SA Hip Hop” stating that male hip hop artists need to see women as their equals, not simply “as your back up vocalists or twerkers”. She also emphasized the importance of recognizing the contribution that female rappers have made to the growth and diversity of South African Hip Hop. Aside from their contributions to growth, these artists are also growing in leaps and bounds – and accordingly being recognized for it. Gigi Lamayne was the winner of the Best Female category at the 2013 South African Hip Hop Awards and Yugen Blakrok was nominated for Best Freshman, Best Female Emcee and Best Lyricist at the 2014 SA Hip Hop Awards.

    Miss Celaneous and Dope Saint Jude, both from Cape Town, are women who are using their creative work to make commentary on perceptions of women, gender, sexuality, class and the Coloured community. Miss Celaneous is a promoter of women’s freedom and often-overlooked dimensions of Coloured culture and this is expressed through her use of slang and provocative lyrics. Dope Saint Jude has been described as a “socially conscious advocate for feminism…and gender neutrality in Cape Town” by Okay Africa, with her lyrics and videos complicating distinctions between gender, race and class identities and thereby bringing to the fore issues related to power and inequalities. With a mixture of Cape Coloured slang and ‘Gayle’ (slang used in queer Coloured subcultures) tracks such as “Keep In Touch” are saturated with both metaphors, blatant references and high-powered social commentary on the tensions she sees in society. In doing so, she promotes the multifaceted nature of her own personality, and consequently refracts as a role model for many.

    As mentioned earlier, feminist movements are always evolving in response to contemporary experiences and realities. This essay has highlighted some of the preliminary trends, people, as well as online and practical dimensions of an ever-strengthening wave of women moving powerfully in South Africa within the current context of global attention to women’s empowerment.  It’s not just about getting female faces out there. It is a process which involves the re-evaluating and reconstructing conceptions and perceptions of womanhood, the female body and women’s role in society through online spaces, women for women collectives and the bending of stereotypes; as well as looking at how these ideas intersect with other social categories. And it’s about love, in every sense of the word.

    [Written by Christa Dee & Sindi-Leigh McBride]