Women, Parliament and the return of the ‘Cult of Femininity’

During International Women’s Month celebrations, we were shocked by a high-profile South African Police Service leader, Lieutenant General Hilda Khosi Senthumule, twirling during her presentation at the parliamentary ad hoc committee hearing into alleged interference by criminal syndicates in the country’s law enforcement arena.

She was apparently trying to prove that “she paid for her own procedures”, in this instance, an expensive Brazilian butt lift (BBL), an aesthetic surgery to modify the body into a particular shape and size.

This “visually” modified look gained popularity in the early 2010s when celebrity family the Kardashians began promoting it.

We have since seen many young women, mainly celebrities and influencers on social media, paying a lot of money in Turkey and sometimes locally to undergo the procedure for the “hourglass”-shaped bodies. This article, however, is not about the dangers of BBL surgeries or an attack on people wanting to enhance their looks with their own money.

The article is a response to the embarrassment of a woman in a senior leadership position who twirls and provides a show in the parliamentary ad hoc committee, trying to prove that she takes care of herself and pays for her own cosmetic surgeries.

In a serious investigation against criminal syndicates’ interference in South African law enforcement agencies, the show lasted for a few minutes, with comments and giggling across the political party members present, with one even saying, “when [the] general stood up with her beautiful body, I could not look because … I am prone to temptation.”

Senthumule later went on to explain how “humiliating” it was for her to be reduced to hearing the BBL allegations by her male colleagues, and further told the committee of the impact these allegations would have on young women looking up to her as a leader.

Throughout these investigations, it is the spectacle of materialism and embarrassing consumption, the amounts of money spent on “alcohol, luxury clothing items, cars and the alleged BBLs” that left many of us feeling sick, given the urgency of precarious South African socioeconomic conditions.

Even though Senthumule later explained that she paid for her own “procedures”, because when she was dressed in the SAPS uniform and carried that gun, she represented the badge. She would say to herself, “damn, I look good”.

Sarah Baartmann

This shocking scenario reminds us of the 2002 parliamentary session when South African women in Parliament, including Bridget Mabandla (who was then deputy minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology), celebrated the return of the remains of Sarah Baartman, as a victory against colonial racialism and for gender justice. Publicly exhibited and humiliated in 19th century European circuses, Baartman became a symbol of ridicule and firmly symbolised the global “othering” of black women’s sexuality.

The exhibition of Sarah Baartman’s body for European audiences made it clear that black women were reduced to their “sexual parts”, which fed the fantasies of those who were watching her exhibitions, rendering her as inferior and reducing her to being subhuman.

As Black women writers and activists, including the recently deceased Diana Ferus, we advocated for the repatriation of Sarah Baartmann’s remains after her body had been dissected in French laboratories. The French parliament was moved by the poem, Tribute to Sarah Baartmann, by Ferrus, to agree on the repatriation of Baartmann’s remains. During almost six years of negotiations, South African parliamentarians prepared to honour her and restore her body to the annals of history, beyond her “buttocks”.

These parliamentarians in 2002 knew that Baartman represented the race and gender politics of this century, which stripped black women of their beauty and agency.

Twenty-four years later, in an ad hoc parliamentary committee, a senior black woman is twirling, saying “she’s now a national asset, with more guys now wanting to take her out on dates”, a clear indication that she has now become popular because of the alleged BBL focus on her.

One would be forgiven for not remembering her argument with regard to the important work she does within law enforcement SA, as social media ran with the BBL story which was first raised by her senior male colleague in the Madlanga Commission.

An absolute focus on the “buttocks” and visual appearance of this senior woman leader makes it hard not to think of Pumla Dineo Gqola’s notion of the “cult of femininity” that has gripped women who are supposed to lead us beyond their physical attraction.

This return to the cult of femininity with traditional “heterosexual” feminised bodies poses a risk of the reversal of women’s rights activists and feminists who fought for the presence of women in Parliament to promote a transformative society.

This version of women’s empowerment “is so watered down that it threatens to stall the social transformation”, as Pumla Dineo Gqola noted.

‘Spectacle politics’

Parliaments all over the world have become sites of “spectacle politics” with debates quickly degenerating into physical fights, sometimes content creation spaces and even allowing passionate, hateful utterances to be normalised, as we have seen in the the recent case of a Senegalese woman MP demanding double punishment for the LGBTQI+ community, claiming that queerness is “not in our culture or tradition”.

It has become easy to use this space globally to air unfortunate and unaccountable views, with many seeing it as a space for performative politics for those seeking to inflate their social media numbers.

These parliamentary spectacles indicate the deep but forgotten struggles by women’s rights activists and feminists all over the globe demanding the right to vote, equality and a presence in political positions of power, which will ensure that women can choose their lifestyles and how they spend their money.

The return to women being seen as just “bodies” within political cultures in South Africa needs serious attention for those in power and those rising to leadership positions.

As women in leadership positions, it is our duty to refuse the seduction of forming part of the “cult of femininity” that seeks to produce a one-dimensional type of woman.

We must insist on a diversity of women leaders beyond their being “bodies” where lipstick and obsessive feminised looks can even border on dangerous and anti-transformative politics in spaces of power and influence.

We are beyond the bodies and buttocks that carry overly sexualised innuendos, which politics seeks to reduce us to. DM