One of the things that shocked me when I arrived in Parliament as an MP was how deferential the staff are. And it’s not subtle. Before I delve in, to quote Judge Mbenenge, let me provide some context to my argument.
The work that the Speaker, Parliament and its committees do is supported by professional public servants who do not belong to any political party. For example, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts is supported by seven staff members who report to a manager in the system. They are there to support me as the committee chair and the work of the committee.
Back to the deferential culture in Parliament.
Without fail, staff will refer to me (and others, I’m sure) as Honourable Chair, Chairperson or Chair. I am referring to all parliamentary staff, whether on the premises or off, or a weekend. Some of the women staff even curtsy when they greet, or bow. Some of the male staff will clasp their hands together or bow. There have also been occasions when people abruptly walk out of the lift when members walk in or step aside in a queue so that MPs can go before them.
It took months to assure those I come across most often that this is unnecessary and embarrassing for me. On more than one occasion I have had to sternly tell a public servant from the executive branch or Parliament that I insist they use my clan name if my name is too difficult to utter. Many of them now say “Hlubi” or “Radebe”, as a sign of respect in the traditional sense. It’s a comfortable compromise for all concerned.
I am relating all of this because none of these people are employed by me. I also cannot fire them because they belong in the professional civil service. Of course, I can lay a complaint against them or make their lives difficult if I was that way inclined because even some of their bosses are similarly deferential. In other words, although I wouldn’t do it unnecessarily, they understand fully well that I can call the Speaker or Parliament secretary at any time.
I have power they do not have. I have access they do not have. I have influence they do not have. It would be preposterous for me to say in any forum that because I am not their manager, we are equals in terms of power dynamics. I hope the Judicial Conduct Tribunal looking into a sexual harassment complaint by a court staff member against Judge President Selby Mbenenge of the Eastern Cape Division of the High Court does not buy this nonsense.
Yet, this is what Judge President Mbenenge implausibly suggested before the tribunal. This laughable proposition, said with much glee, arrogance and a nauseatingly sexist intellectual superiority complex in respect of the (female) evidence leader (and his own counsel), seems to suppose the rest of us live in the world he has created in his head. This is the world where the most powerful individual in every high court building in the Eastern Cape is an equal to a junior secretary for the purposes of random sexual advances via text message.
Power dynamics do not only apply to sexual harassment cases but general wrongdoing as well. It is often the case that people in a vulnerable position are prone to being pressured to do things they would ordinarily not agree to if a peer asked them to do the same. From a distance it is easy to believe that such people can easily say “no”, but fears of losing income or career advancement all play a role in how far backwards they bend for those whose whims can affect their destiny.
The effect of his testimony is staggeringly disturbing, of course.
The effect is that in the Eastern Cape Division of the High Court it is okay for judges to send WhatsApp messages to junior staff and proposition them and pester them for nude pictures. The judge president of the Eastern Cape would have absolutely no problem with it. I hope I am not wrong in thinking that if a candidate for the Bench were to say the same before the Judicial Service Commission during an interview, they would most certainly not be appointed.
If the tribunal agrees with him, yet another low bar for leadership would have been set in South Africa’s seemingly terminal decline into a putrid gutter – where sexually predatory men can lean on society’s overreliance on the irrational belief in the Delilah who brings down their Samson. That logic says that because a powerful man probably has detractors and enemies then they have carte blanche to misuse and abuse their power and position, particularly against women at whom they direct their sexual urges without any sense of shame or accountability.
There was also the invocation of culture, where it is apparently fine for a grey-haired church elder to ask a woman young enough to be his daughter to take off her clothes and send him a revealing picture. This fatherly figure, a critical component of black cultural life, has no shame defending the fact that his sexual urges superseded any sense of sympathy for the younger person’s mental health struggles.
I am unfamiliar with the version of culture presented by the judge – one where deference to age, and an obligation to be protective of those younger than yourself when vulnerable, count for nothing. In any event, there is no version of our culture where it is normal to ask to see a woman’s breast within two hours of texting them for the first time.
Even in the context of lovers who can’t keep their hands off each other, it’s an incredibly strange thing for one to believe they can ask for nudes soon after being told by the other that they are in such mental anguish that they have been booked off work for stress. Far from demonstrating love and consideration, it instead demonstrates that the complainant was nothing more than an object of wild sexual desires that could not be held at bay even by the sickness of that object.
There has also been much discussion on social media where many men defend this behaviour, looking for any smidgen of evidence to suggest the complainant brought all of this upon herself. Apparently, she could not be shocked, mystified, feel pressured or wonder what would happen if she responded in the same manner she would to a peer.
The same men who normalise this behaviour feel validated because this is precisely what they do or wish they could do. They are hoping for a quasi-judicial permission structure for them to harass and degrade women they work with, without any fear of reprisal.
There is much to be said about how revealing this episode has been about the deeply misogynistic and rape-cultured views of many men on social media. They have been gleeful, toxic and violent in language, clearly using the name and image of the complainant as a vessel for deep feelings of sexual degradation towards women in general.
In the final analysis, Mbenenge’s attitude and behaviour, and the tribunal’s wide berth where he was allowed to be argumentative rather than directly answer questions and was allowed to fire questions back at the evidence leader, reflects the patriarchal society we are. It shows the steep mountain of sexism, mansplaining and subliminal violence women face every day, including female legal practitioners.
It’s a damn shame that rather than being a teachable moment, the entire saga is likely to entrench the worst version of our society. I just hope things won’t get worse for women in the legal profession after this, but I am not hopeful given that women are sometimes complicit in covering up and excusing the same behaviours. DM