Observing Women's Month

A response to the Women in African Literature Virtual Lecture hosted by the The African Languages subsection of the School of Languages and Literatures at Rhodes University.

Noni Jabavu

After I had entered the meeting details, 25 mini squares spread out on my screen and the well-attended lecture began. The guest speaker, Dr. Athambile Masola, began her presentation and my laughter was flat when I realized that I didn’t recognize this brilliant woman. How did I not know her? And then when she spoke of her research on Ukuzilanda (to fetch oneself), and resisting erasure, the irony was not lost on me. Masola is a Mandela-Rhodes Scholar who graduated with a Masters in Education. She writes about issues such as education, feminism, and politics. Her work has appeared in SABLE Literary magazine, Prufrock, Sunday Independent, Mail and Guardian, The Huffington Post and Al Jazeera.

“The names that come to me and the way that I find ingcwadi zomama it almost feels like they’re whispering to me.” - Athambile Masola

Photo: The Journalist

As she switched from English to isiXhosa, I admired her ability to easily navigate between these two languages, and as she told the story of the women in her life and how important it was for her mother that she learn isiXhosa, I felt a deep appreciation for my own matrilineal influences. So why was it difficult for women to engrave themselves into history? Had Noni Jabavu not spearheaded the fight, how much progress would we have made?, she asked.

Furthermore, as a form of resistance against intellectual erasure, Black women formulated their own genealogies of Black women thinkers. Brittney Cooper explains in Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women, that the intentionally calling of names created an intellectual genealogy of race women’s work and was a practice of resistance against intellectual erasure. And on that note, I give you some of Masola’s own list of names, may they, and other women not be erased:

• Nontsiki Mqwetho

• Noni Jabavu

• Charlotte Maxeke

• Lauretta Ngcobo

• Sara Baartman

• Miriam Tlali and Black Consciousness writers

• Pumla Gqola

• Kholeka Shange

• Siphokazi Magadla

“Ukuzilanda is a call to claim a literary ancestry.” - Pumla Gqola

After Masola's presentation, Prof Pumla Gqola - the discussant - gave a spectacular response. To see these two women, who share a deep admiration of one another was refreshing. Gqola asked an important question, how do we do the work of remembering? How do we cement our names in literary history? Gqola herself is an award-winning author. Her illustrious career spans full-time academic and research positions at several South African universities and other institutions. As a gender activist and full time professor, Gqola has written extensively for both local and international academic journals. She is the author of four books including the seminal work “Rape: A South African Nightmare”. Ukuzilanda, Gqola adds, is about debunking the perpetual accusation targeted at black women that we are recent arrivals because when you are a recent arrival, you have no tradition, you have nothing to rely on and you have no authority.

So, as we wrap up Women’s month, may we remember all these writers, may we do our part in helping people remember.