Chapter Six
6.6 Not white enough, not black enough! Shakti - a novice academic (UDW)
Like some of the dishonesty and the backstabbing that goes on from time to time - I don't know why people have to behave that way. We can all have such harmonious lives if we just stopped all this nonsense.
I know especially when it came to finding out about what people were doing - everyone just gets so secretive and try to be evasive and hide what they are doing. I really don't understand this kind of behaviour - I am so open about everything - I am so trusting about everything. I know you even told me not to be so trusting in this place that people do get hurt. But it is going against my nature to try to become like others. I would like us especially us women to be able to work together but it doesn't always happen. We get a few people like yourself that feel strongly about empowering women and try to do something about it but not others. I think its great what you - sue have achieved with all your work with the rural women and the work with the women researchers - if only more women or even men - cared a little more then it would be a lot easier to be an academic and a researcher.
But I think the climate is changing. I am so positive about all the new appointments at the university. I think if we are serious we can really turn things around. I know its been so bad here in the past that to talk about women's concerns about research is almost like a joke. But I know how serious it is when I see how it ultimately affects us as women. I see how we are stuck in this place because of the very issues about research and publishing and so on. But I would like to see a more directed attempt to help women at this campus.
I think if we had someone just to see to the women's issues on campus then we would make headway. I know you asking about the Women's Forum but they have a different focus - they also need to see that they have a role to play in monitoring and assisting women with research related problems.
Why the present research structures can't do this? I think its too general - they speak about redress and equity but it is all on paper. What have they done here to monitor the position of women in research? What have they done to specifically help women researchers? I know that some of the problems are similar to men as well - but I really feel that women have to be singled out - they have to receive special attention. Like the CSD did in their restructuring - how they set up a special division to help women researchers - I just feel that a similar approach should be adopted by our university.
Maybe a special appointment - a special post - given to a women to help other women researchers. Maybe even someone like you sue, who is so committed - you could provide the leadership and try to really identify women - categorise them in terms of their research needs and then try to support then in all ways possible. You would be a kind of mentor but to all women on this campus. They would know that if they had a problem in research but that it was also related to maybe other issues of harassment or discrimination then they have you to take up the issues for them. Maybe this could happen within the Women's Forum or it could happen within the research division. I don't really know how it might be structured but I know it will work. But it must also have links with all faculties so that there is constant feedback and awareness raising and monitoring. I think besides helping the women, it will also serve to make sure that the men - who are usually the ones in managerial positions - that they understand their own behaviours and learn and change their ways of perceiving women researchers.
But coming back to my masters research, I wish I knew then what I know now. I was so nafve about a lot of things. Like how to apply for research funds- Ididn't even know that I could in the first place - I didn't know where to apply, who were the funding agents, how much they were prepared to give me. I later realised that I had to draw up a budget. I wasn't sure how much to askfor and why. I didn't know that I couldn't askfor a computer because this was for degree purposes, I didn't know that I could ask for money for transport and subsistence and running costs and all those sorts of things. Now if there was a workshop or someone who was assigned to all the postgraduate students precisely to assist them with these problems then it would have been easier. In fact I realise now that I could have got more money than what I asked for. And some of the other students were so spiteful they didn't even tell me that they had applied for this or that or the other.
But is like a game - you have to know the rules. Once you know the rules then it is easy.
But the men here who seem to know the rules tend to keep it to themselves. It's the old boys club mentality. I know even when there is a conference somewhere they wont tell you about it. But I learnt now not to worry about all that. But what does worry me is all these newcomers that have been appointed to this campus. Life is made so easy for them while we are ignored. Its almost like I am the lost generation of researchers. I don't think it's very fair to completely ignore those who were here for some time now. I mean if I look at my office, I don't have a computer for a start. I tried to bring my own but then with all these break-ins I changed my mind. I try to make do with what I have. I heard that all the
new members of staff qualify for a special fund for computers or something like that - I am not too sure how it works - but nobody asked me?
I also have to go to the computer room to use the internet, yet the secretaries and some others have it in their offices but we are not allowed to use it. I just wish that people would change their working habits. Things don't belong to individuals in this place its for all of us. So why do people behave as though they bought the things.
I also had to share a line for a while but it is so frustrating to have to phone the secretaries for outside lines - it just makes it that much harder to get anything done smoothly.
When I compare my development as a researcher with especially the white academics across the hill at UND, I really feel disgusted with myself ... yet I know that I shouldn't.
Its not entirely my own fault that I have such a long way to go to establish a research record or a publications record. Yet all my white friends at UND seem to know exactly what moves to make ... they just seem to have a better grasp of this research game. We are only just learning the ropes. But of course UND has always had a research track record whereas we at UNIZUL were only concerned with teaching. So in that respect we women at the historically black universities are really at a disadvantage and there's no way you can tell me that all women in this country are at the same starting blocks. Its not fair ... I have heard that most of the funding for research still goes to white women academics... I think it was the CSD that gave that information. So this is not fair on us.
They benefited in the past regime because they were white and now they are benefiting because they are women. I'm not being racist or anything but this is what I can see is the situation here in our country.
I also feel that for a while there was talk about special considerations for black women for funding and conferences and things like that .. .but now it seems that all of that is forgotten. All they want to know is how many publications I got. how can I publish when every minute of the day I have to deal with faculty issues and university issues and I get so tired at the end of the day that my family life is suffering. I can really see how the stress is getting to my family. My husband tries to be supportive but he feels that I have to give to much to this institution compared to what I get from it. I really have to juggle to survive.
And that is what it has come down to, survive. It is so tiring to be a good, intellectually strong researcher, it completely drains me.
I also have to liase with others in my field in this region and they are mainly white women academics and researchers. I just feel so alienated from them at times. They have one way of seeing things and that's it. They don't really try to appreciate ... 1 mean really understand where we are coming from. So you find that most of the black women tend to get very angry and aggressive at these meetings not because they don't like whites but it's the frustration of not being taken seriously, of being treated like children, as
if
you are there to learn from the white experts. I know this may sound like I am contradicting myself because I said that the white academics seem to know the ropes and know what to do. But these are separate issues. Its how can I say it .... the patronising attitude that has to change ... even here the well meaning white women don't realise how patronising their empathy can be.I really feel that so much has to be done before the situation in research is reversed. I don't even know
if
that is the right thing. I just want more fairness and justice when it comes to the way our research records are viewed. I just want for instance, my view or my perspective, or my version of research to be treated with the same amount of respect like the white women academics. I mean when I look at all the people who are doing research consultancy work in this country they are mainly white men and women academics.Nobody seems to be protesting loudly enough to try to encourage and support black women researchers. That is why
if
the government is serious about equity and equality and all that, they are going to have to do something for black women researchers especially. But to be honest as an Indian woman I am beginning to get a little worried.You know the saying 'that in the past we weren't white enough and now we are not black enough' As the days go by I feel more alienated. Even though I consider myself to be an African, everything that is happening around me keeps reminding me that I am Indian.
How can I feel national pride? How can I be proud to be a South African when everywhere I turn I am getting these mixed signals about my role in this country? I have tried so hard to understand what multiculturalism means, I have been so sincere in my efforts to bring about racial harmony especially through my teaching area. Yet the white women are let of the hook. I think the blacks have forgotten who the real oppressors were.
They don't make these alienating comments and remarks about the white women here. But
we Indians have to constantly here that we got rich because we exploited them. Once that is said then it is used to justify all the actions that exclude us. I really don't know where all of this is going to take us. But it is very depressing especially as I said when you do your utmost to build bridges.
I don't know
if
I have said too much or digressed from your concerns, Sue?I tried so many times to get funding for my research. Then they tell me that I don't have a strong research track record. When I applied for conference funding again they asked me about my publications. All these things seem like luxuries to me. Yet I am working so hard here ... my colleagues will bear testimony to that. Nobody is giving me any credit for all those hours that I spend just sorting out academic things here. And I cant help getting really ticked off when I see all the newer members of staff get so many privileges and concessions. They just came in and suddenly qualify for study leave, special leave, computers, and everything - it just doesn't seem fair on those of us that have to keep this ship afloat. Because that is what I feel my role here has amounted to .. .just keeping the ship afloat. I hope we don't end up like the Titanic.
6.7 Feminism, a white man's trick to stir up trouble in the African society? Zinzi-