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COPYRIGHT AND CITATION CONSIDERATIONS FOR THIS THESIS/ DISSERTATION o Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. o NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes. o ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original. How to cite this thesis Surname, Initial(s). (2012). Title of the thesis or dissertation (Doctoral Thesis / Master’s Dissertation). Johannesburg: University of Johannesburg. Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/102000/0002 (Accessed: 22 August 2017). 1. Contested Feminisms, Masculinism and Gender Relations in the Economic Freedom Fighters Student Command: A view from the branch A Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Anthropology & Development Studies of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Johannesburg by TERRI MAGGOTT 217040500 In Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Development Studies October, 2019 Johannesburg, South Africa Supervised by Dr. Trevor Ngwane Co-Supervised by Dr. Efua Prah 2. This dissertation is dedicated to the memory of Miss Sthembile Mahlaba, a mother, teacher and agent of social change. 4. ABSTRACT Scholars agree that the rise of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has altered South Africa’s political landscape since its inception in 2013. Its Student Command (EFFSC) has made similar pathways in student politics at institutions of higher learning, particularly in formal Student Representative Councils (SRCs) across the country, although little research exists on this level of EFF politics. The EFFSC played an important role in the trajectory and aftermath of the Fees Must Fall movement of 2015 and 2016, which critiqued the lingering colonial nature of education, knowledge production and patriarchy. Scholars have further argued that the EFF subscribes to a masculine style of politics, evident in its choice of military attire and often clumsy grasp of how gender configures within its class and race analyses of the current crisis of neoliberal capitalism. However, no research exists on how instances of sexism play out within EFFSC branches or the emerging black radical feminist politics within its ranks. Focusing on a particular EFFSC branch, this study attempted to understand how gender justice configures within the student party’s struggles for ‘free education’ and ‘economic freedom’ and how the specific social processes which shape these expressions encourage or inhibit the scope for feminist politics in the EFF and EFFSC. As a former leader and feminist in the branch under study, I coupled critical autoethnography with a thematic analysis of various data, including participant observations, interviews, a women-only focus group, documents and select social media posts. The analysis revealed three general positions within the branch regarding gender and feminism: Marxist feminism, which extended the EFF’s self-framed materialist feminist position by (over)emphasising class oppression under cpaitalism; anti-feminism, which draws on Marxist discourse to argue that feminism is a Western imposition and relies on sexualised violence to delegitimise women’s organising; and, in contrast, black radical feminism which simultaneously challenges the male hegemony I identified and transcends gender-neutral analyses of South Africa’s current economic situation. These three expressions were located within larger gender relations characterised as sexist, masculinist and misogynist. The research was conducted during the branch’s 5. campaign and victory over the SRC at its campus in Johannesburg, South Africa. I argue that during this shift in student governance, the branch went from opposition to governance, and the male hegemony within it intensified as women fighters attempted to organise outside it. Despite this, women and feminist fighters resist erasure and exclusion from the EFFSC’s ideological work and from the political space using a black radical perspective that is both intersectional and interstitial, occurring at the margins of the masculinist politics that dominate the branch. Keywords: Economic Freedom Fighters Student Command, masculinism, feminism, black radical feminism, anti-feminism, student politics, Fees Must Fall. 6. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research would not have been possible without the women (and some men) of the EFF Student Command. Your commitment to feminist politics inspired me to complete this work, especially at times when I doubted its importance. I thank you all. The pride I feel towards your acts of strength and bravery will continue to inspire my political activism. I am so honoured to call you my comrades and for the love you show me so freely. Again, I thank you all. I would also like to thank my supervisors, comrade Trevor Ngwane and Dr. Efua Prah, who pushed me beyond what I thought I was capable of. Their input and encouragement were critical to this research, as they both pushed me to transcend the limits of my comfort zone, both intellectually and politically. To comrade Trevor, thank you for being there for me and helping me manage every obstacle, no matter how insignificant. Your contributions have enhanced my writing and thinking, and your constant positive outlook encourages me to continue being active in the tough terrains of political activism. To Efua, I am so grateful for the insightful ideas you’ve shared with Trevor and I, as well as for the feminist love you have shown me independent of this work. You’ve both challenged me in ways that will continue to shape my academic journey. I thank you both. I would further like to acknowledge my fellow students for the countless study sessions and writing groups. I strongly believe that knowledge production is a collective project, and many of you were instrumental to this work in ways that cannot be quantified. It takes a village, right? Thank you the community we shared, especially to Francesco and Nicole. I’d also like to thank my loving partner for the encouragement, debates and advice you offered me during this process. Our discussions and debates (fights...?) about feminist issues were crucial to my intellectual and human development, and I thank you deeply for accompanying me on this intellectual rollercoaster. Much love to all of you. 7. TABLE OF CONTENTS AFFIDAVIT iii ABSTRACT iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vi TABLE OF CONTENTS vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS x LIST OF IMAGES xi 1. RESEARCHING MY COMRADES: INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY 1 1.1. Introduction and Rationale 1 1.2. Research Questions and Sub-Questions 3 1.3. Aims and Objectives 4 1.4. Research Paradigm: Feminist epistemological considerations 4 1.5. Data Collection 5 1.6. Fighters as “Participants” 7 1.7. Data Analysis 8 1.8. Ethical Considerations 9 1.9. Reflexivity 11 1.10. Limitations of the Study 12 1.11. Outline of the Dissertation 14 2. BEYOND MASCULINISM: FEMINIST THEORY IN THE EFFSC 17 2.1. Introduction 17 2.2. “Where are the women?”: Masculinism in the EFFSC 18 2.3. Situating the EFFSC’s Class Analyses Within Feminist Theory 20 2.3.1. Marxist Feminism 21 2.3.2. Socialist Feminism 24 2.4. Forging Black Radical Feminism in the EFFSC 27 2.4.1. Radical Feminism 27 2.4.2. (US) Black Feminism 30 2.4.3. African Feminisms 31 2.4.4. Black Radical Feminism 33 2.5. Anti-feminism 35 2.6. Conclusions 36 8. 3. CONTESTED FEMINISMS: MARXISM, ANTI-FEMINISM AND RADICAL GENDER POLITICS 39 3.1. Introduction 39 3.2. Setting the Scene: The branch and the campus 40 3.2.1. Male Monopoly: The intersections of gender and age in branch leadership 40 3.2.2. From fighters/activists to student politicians/bureaucrats 43 3.3. “Capitalism is the ruling centre, capitalism decides what’s power”: Marxist feminism and structure-centric gender analyses 46 3.4. “The feminists of this branch are useless, power hungry idiots”: Anti-feminism in the branch 52 3.5. “This is a picture of a womxn base kas’ lam disrupting”: Black Radical Feminism in the EFFSC 62 3.6. Conclusion 69 4. ANTAGONISTIC GENDER RELATIONS, RAPE CULTURE IN THE EFFSC AND WOMEN’S RESISTANCE 71 4.1. Introduction 71 4.2. “If I tell people I am feminist, I am ridiculed for it”: Gender relations in the branch 72 4.2.1. Sexism and toxic masculinity 72 4.2.2 Normalised gender antagonisms and a ‘war on women’ 75 4.2.3. Roses, Rocks and Regality: Constructions of ‘female fighters’ 77 4.3. “You endanger us when you act like rape or abuse is something to look past”: Rape culture in the EFFSC 81 4.3.1. Sexism and misogyny as branch culture 81 4.3.2. Defending and rewarding violent masculinities 83 4.4. “I refuse to be referred to as ‘flower’ of the revolution”: Women’s agency and resistance 87 4.5. Conclusion 93 5. CONCLUSIONS: CONFRONTING MASCULINISM, EXPANDING FEMINISM AND ‘ECONOMIC FREEDOM’ 95 6. REFERENCES 100 7. APPENDICES 111 7.1. Appendix A - Semi-structured interview schedule 111 7.1.1. For EFFSC general (branch) members 111 7.1.2. For EFFSC Branch Leaders 112 7.2. Appendix B - Focus Group Schedule Guideline 114 9. 7.3. Appendix C - Interview Information and Consent Form 116 7.4. Appendix D - Focus Group Information and Consent Form 118 10. LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ANC - African National Congress ANCYL - African National Congress Youth League BSCT - Branch Students Command Team CCT - Central Command Team (of the EFF) CSCT - Central Students Command Team (of the EFFSC) EFF - Economic Freedom Fighters EFFSC - Economic Freedom Fighters Student Command EFFWC - Economic Freedom Fighters Women’s Command FMF - Fees Must Fall LGBTQIA+ - Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans gender, Queer, Intersex, A-sexual, All-sex NSA - National Students Assembly RAG - Rise and Give (student society) SASCO - South African Students Congress SRC - Student Representative Council PASMA - Pan Africanist Student Movement of Azania 11.