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South African News Updates |
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24 May 2009 Democratic
Alliance (DA) leader Helen Zille on Friday said sexism
and misogyny were rife in South African society, and
accused President Jacob Zuma of setting a bad example.
Citing a recent study into
the sexual behaviour of the youth by the University of
Stellenbosch, she said some 27% of the youth surveyed
thought "they could prevent HIV infection if they
bathed after sex".
"One wonders [silently] where they got that idea from.
Asking that question aloud would attract another
week-long misdirected uproar to divert us from the
real issues," Zille said in her weekly newsletter.
"This statistic is a sharp reminder of the powerful
impact that the behaviour of leaders has on young
people. It also explains why a leader's personal
conduct should be subject to scrutiny if it has public
consequences.
"But in South Africa we prefer respecting taboos
rather than facing facts."
Zille outraged the ANC and its allies earlier this
month when she said Zuma was a self-confessed
womaniser who by his own admission, in his rape trial
in 2007, had sex with an HIV-positive woman without
using a condom, thereby exposing his wives to the
virus.
The new Western Cape premier made the remark after she
came under fire from the ruling party for appointing
only men to her executive team in the province.
The row put paid to Zuma's call for better relations
between the ANC and the opposition.
On Thursday ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe said
the party had refused to give the DA the chairmanship
of any of Parliament's new portfolio committees
because Zille had shown disrespect to Zuma.
Zille has insisted that
she appointed her ministers because they were the best
people for the job.
And she has dismissed calls to place women in the
Western Cape as hypocritical, saying the ANC and the
Congress of South African Trade Unions were run by men
and the organisations had failed to address
deep-seated sexism in society.
Zille said the myths that washing or taking the
contraceptive pill could prevent HIV infection were
"convenient for the large number of South African men
who believe that multiple, unprotected sexual
encounters are their right. Such men have no interest
in challenging these myths.
"When research like this emerges, it is clear how thin
our constitutional veneer is in South Africa.Just
scratch the surface and the real SA emerges."
Zille said crude attacks on her on a Facebook site
that listed ANC Youth League spokesperson Floyd
Shivambu as one of its administrators, exposed "such
depths of bigotry and misogyny, that it is almost
understandable why gender activists avoid the real
issues".
"In public, we often hear the ANC reciting its mantra
of a 'non-racial, non-sexist society'. The warped set
of hateful patriarchal attitudes displayed on this
site, perhaps reveals more of the truth." -- Sapa
EsinIslam.Com
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