Teboho Maitse: Nationalism, national liberation and violence

“I believe that if during the process of struggle for national liberation from an oppressive and racist regime, women are still raped, molested, humiliated, tortured by men, then obviously there is something very, very wrong with the ethos of both nationalism and national liberation.”

“The question is, in day to day life, who are 'others' in relation to men? I am, you are.”

“We have a different outlook. We are aspiring for different things in the world. We want to live in a world where...  we want to live in a world without war,  without racism, without rape,  without butchering.”

"The connection between nationalism, the struggle for national liberation, and male violence against women has escaped discussion for decades. If, during the struggle for national liberation and after liberation from an oppressive and racist regime, women are still beaten, raped, molested, humiliated, and tortured by men, then we must question the ethos of nationalism. In particular, we must ask whether nationalism creates in men an ongoing need to subordinate women in order to maintain a sense of themselves as self- possessed autonomous beings. 

This discussion looks at political violence in South Africa during the struggle for national liberation. It seeks to connect that political violence to violence in the private sphere and examines the ways that nationalism constructs masculinities and institutionalises male violence against women under the rubric of traditional cultural practices. Similarly, the discussion traces the selective deployment of culture in nationalism to construct images of femininity, sexuality and motherhood which increase women's vulnerability to male violence. 

Teboho is a South African Member of the ANC and its former representative in West Yorkshire. Teboho is presently completing her PhD at the University of Bradford on the subject of Male Violence Towards Women in South Africa. Since 1994 Teboho has held the position of Deputy Convenor at the Research Unit on Violence, Abuse and Gender Relations at Bradford University."

Since 1996:

Teboho co-founded the Women’s Empowerment Unit for the South African Parliament, and was appointed a Commissioner of the Commission for Gender Equality, a role she performed from 2002-2012. She died on November 9^th, 2013, and her obituary by the Commission can be found here: https://www.gov.za/condolences-passing-dr-teboho-maitse