Being a Feminist in the Fallist Movement

in Contemporary South Africa

Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/critical-times/article-pdf/3/3/488/1542670/488mazibuko.pdf by guest on 04 February 2025

MBALI MAZIBUKO

abstract This short es­say of­fers re­flec­tive fem­i­nist in­sight into the Fees Must Fall Movement of
2015–16 that was led by stu­dents and work­ers at uni­ver­si­ties in South Africa. It con­sid­ers the ways in
which Black fem­i­nist life is ne­go­ti­ated and em­bod­ied in a con­tem­po­rary stu­dent-worker move­ment
that re­mains ori­ented by and to­ward heg­e­monic hypermasculinities. This text fur­ther ar­gues that Black
fem­i­nist in­ter­ven­tion and mo­bi­li­za­tion is dis­tinct from wom­en’s move­ments as they hap­pened un­der
apart­heid. Feminist or­ga­niz­ing is prin­ci­pled in par­tic­u­lar ways, and these ways are evidenced by Black
fem­in ­ ist in­ter­ven­tions within the Fees Must Fall (FMF) move­ment. This es­say dem­on­strates how inter-
sectionality func­tions as more than a di­ag­nos­tic tool. Intersectionality and how it is imag­ined and used
in the con­tem­po­rary South Af­ri­can fem­i­nist con­text does not only rec­og­nize mul­ti­ple and interlocking
op­pres­sions. Intersectionality is also in itself a meth­od­ol­o­gy. Intersectionality as dem­on­strated by fem­
i­nists and the LGBTIQA com­mu­nity of the FMF move­ment is a meth­od­o­log­i­cal choice that re­quires that
var­io­ us forms of pro­test and in­ter­ven­tion be used si­mul­ta­neously to chal­lenge sys­temic op­pres­sions.
Centering intersectionality as meth­od­ol­ogy works to dis­rupt ar­chaic per­spec­tives on what is and is not
ac­tiv­ism, thought, or fem­i­nist work. Relying on the in­tel­lec­tual work of stu­dent-ac­tiv­ists in the move­
ment, oth­er­wise known as “fallists,” and mem­ory and sto­ry-tell­ing as meth­od­o­log­i­cal tools, this es­say
be­gins to imag­ine how we can think, re­search, and write in ways that me­mo­ri­al­ize and ar­chive our lives,
our his­to­ries, and our col­lec­tive imaginaries.

keywords intersectionality, Fees Must Fall, fem­i­nist, uni­ver­si­ty, South Africa

Contemporary con­cerns about South Africa’s higher ed­u­ca­tion land­scape, as ar­tic­

u­lated by stu­dents, work­ers, and allies, re­mind us that the strug­gles we face in the
pres­ent carry deep his­tor­i­cal leg­a­cies in the vi­o­lent apart­heid re­gime. Thus, seem­
ingly iso­lated po­lit­i­cal mo­ments, rather than be­ing marked as new or al­most ahis­
tor­i­cal, ac­tu­ally open up to deeply po­lit­i­cal strug­gles. I can­not en­gage in de­tail here
with the his­tory of ed­u­ca­tion un­der co­lo­nial con­di­tions and apart­heid. However,
let me note that the is­sues addressed by the Fees Must Fall move­ment (FMF) are

CRITICAL TIMES | 3:3 | DECEMBER 2020

DOI 10 . 1215/26410478-8662368 | © 2020 Mbali Mazibuko
This is an open ac­cess ar­ti­cle dis­trib­uted un­der the terms of a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). 488
not at all­new. In this short es­say, I think through Black wom­en’s lead­er­ship and

SPECIAL SECTION
par­tic­i­pa­tion in con­tem­po­rary pro­test ac­tion within the uni­ver­si­ty. I also con­sider
the Black fem­i­nist in­ter­ven­tions that have emerged in the cur­rent stu­dent move­
ment. In par­tic­u­lar, I en­gage intersectionality and “fallism” in the con­text of fem­
i­nist iden­tity build­ing. While we have a his­tory of wom­en’s po­lit­i­cal or­ga­niz­ing,
most no­ta­ble dur­ing the strug­gle for lib­er­a­tion from apart­heid, the cur­rent stu­dent

|
move­ment calls on us to think more se­ri­ously about the place of fem­i­nist iden­tity

Global Student Struggles in and against the University

in re­la­tion to other de­mands and strug­gles. I re­flect on my own ex­pe­ri­ences of FMF
and the ways that they have been influ­enced by my com­ing to the world as fem­i­nist
or as what Sa­rah Ahmed terms a “fem­i­nist kill­joy.”1 I have in­cluded my own re­flec­

Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/critical-times/article-pdf/3/3/488/1542670/488mazibuko.pdf by guest on 04 February 2025

tions on FMF as well as the writ­ings of some stu­dent ac­tiv­ists who have claimed
and em­bod­ied the fallist iden­ti­ty.2 I write, per­haps, as one of the qui­eter voices in
con­tem­po­rary stu­dent ac­tiv­ism in South Africa, and I show that decolonial work
can hap­pen in the street and on the web; that it can be ex­plicit or im­plic­it; that it can
en­tail rev­o­lu­tion­ary vi­o­lence, class­room politicking, or any com­bi­na­tion of these
and other pro­test rep­er­toires. I ar­gue that intersectionality and fem­i­nism within
the stu­dent move­ment col­lapses, or at least forces a rec­og­ni­tion of, the rigid bi­na­
ries that dic­tate who and what is im­por­tant, who and what comes first or last, what
kind of work done in the name of the move­ment is more valu­able than an­oth­er.
Hlengiwe Ndlovu re­calls her ex­pe­ri­ences as a stu­dent at Wits University dur­ing
the FMF move­ment of 2015–16.3 On Wednes­day, Oc­to­ber 14, 2015, stu­dents from
Wits shut down the uni­ver­sity by blocking off all­of its en­trances. The shut­down
was a re­sponse to the 10.5 per­cent fee in­crease for the 2016 ac­a­demic year. This day
is of­ten marked as icon­ic, his­tor­i­cal even, be­cause it seems to have presented itself
as new in a post-apart­heid con­text. Media cov­er­age and pub­lic dis­course of­ten cre­
ated the im­pres­sion that FMF was new and le­git­i­mate be­cause his­tor­i­cally white
uni­ver­si­ties like Wits had ral­lied around poor stu­dent-worker con­di­tions. How­
ever, the South Af­ri­can stu­dent move­ment has a much lon­ger ge­ne­al­o­g y, out­side
of its re­cent (re)emer­gence, marked by the FMF move­ment. Students in his­tor­i­cally
Black col­le­ges and uni­ver­si­ties (HBCUs) and poorer in­sti­tu­tions such as Tshwane
University of Technology, Fort Hare University, and Cape Peninsula University of
Technology have rou­tinely protested against fee hikes since 1994.4 The par­tic­i­pa­
tion of his­tor­i­cally advan­taged in­sti­tu­tions, like Wits and the University of Cape
Town (UCT) in FMF was thus seen by ob­serv­ers to le­git­i­mize pro­test ac­tion against
fee in­creases. As a re­sult of the Wits cam­pus shut­down in Oc­to­ber 2015, at least
sev­en­teen other uni­ver­si­ties followed suit with shut­downs of their own.5 For these
rea­sons, FMF emerged as iconic and also served as a re­pos­i­tory for a num­ber of
other is­sues.
Whether a stu­dent move­ment is marked as le­git­i­mate or il­le­git­i­mate de­pends
on who sneezes and whose sneeze set­tles deep enough in our bones for all­of us

MAZIBUKO | FEMINIST IN THE FALLIST MOVEMENT | 489

to catch a cold. This is to say that be­cause his­tor­i­cally white and lib­eral in­sti­tu­
tions of higher learn­ing like Wits and UCT were made ill and left un­treated by the
legacy of apartheid, the rest of the world was made to re­al­ize how deeply sick­en­ing
a so­ci­ety as di­vided as South Africa is. The uni­ver­sity sim­ply op­er­ated as a mi­cro­
cosm of con­tem­po­rary inequalities. Demands made by stu­dents in­clude calls for
uni­ver­si­ties to end the out­sourc­ing of uni­ver­sity work­ers, or ground staff as they
are some­times called, to de­col­o­nize the phys­i­cal and in­tel­lec­tual ar­chi­tec­ture of
the uni­ver­si­ty, to take more se­ri­ously and ad­dress sex­ual vi­o­lence per­pe­trated by
pri­vate se­cu­rity and po­lice of ­fi­cers deployed on cam­pus and by fel­low FMF com­
rades. FMF has also prompted us to ques­tion the im­age of the rain­bow, a sym­bol

Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/critical-times/article-pdf/3/3/488/1542670/488mazibuko.pdf by guest on 04 February 2025

that has be­come all­too per­va­sive in South Af­ri­can pol­i­tics. We are an­gry in spite—
or per­haps I should say be­cause—of the rain­bow that was imag­ined in 1994 at the
in­cep­tion of the tran­si­tion to de­moc­ra­cy. In this con­text, South Africa be­came
at­tached to the idea of a rain­bow, sig­nal­ing a transformed, in­clu­sive, and all­-em­
brac­ing na­tion. While uni­ver­si­ties in dem­o­cratic South Africa have been some­what
remodeled to bring to­gether a broader range of de­mo­graph­ics than they did un­der
the apart­heid re­gime, we re­main stead­fast in ex­pos­ing how the uni­ver­sity is not at
all­the pot of gold at the end of the rain­bow.6 We rec­og­nize that the pre­ferred stu­
dent, the stu­dent who has ease of ac­cess to ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion and has no ped­a­gog­
i­cal or epis­te­mo­log­i­cal qualms with the acad­e­my, is of­ten wealthy, white, and/or
male. Students are also an­gry be­cause even those Black mid­dle- and up­per-class
stu­dents who have been a­ ble to self-fund re­main ig­no­rant and dis­mis­sive of the
plight of the poor. We are an­gry be­cause the rain­bow does not ac­com­mo­date Black
life and Black rad­i­cal pol­i­tics, no mat­ter how much you’d try to blend the other col­
ors. Even when you think about the rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the rain­bow in many other
dis­courses, in South Af­ri­can in­sti­tu­tions of higher learn­ing, par­tic­u­larly those that
are his­tor­i­cally white, the rain­bow does not work in fa­vor of gen­der non-conform­
ing, non-bina­r y, or poor stu­dents and think­ers. Or wom­en. The women in the FMF
move­ment have done so much to pull this rain­bow apart, to ex­pose its clan­des­tine
con­nec­tions with si­lenc­ing and interlocking forms of op­pres­sion. In the cur­rent
stu­dent move­ment, which has be­come a na­tional move­ment, Black women have
in­tro­duced the kind of fem­i­nist prac­tice that is un­apol­o­getic about its agen­da. The
fem­i­nism here, the fem­i­nism that has grown on me, is one that re­fuses our era­sure.
We have al­ways been here, as Zine Magubane and many other fem­i­nists,
in­clud­ing Sheila Meintjies, Nomboniso Gasa, Pumla Dineo Gqola, Hannah Britton,
and Jennifer Fish, have ar­gued. However, the wom­en’s move­ment un­der apart­heid,
or­ga­nized un­der po­lit­i­cal struc­tures such as the Af­ri­can National Congress Wom­
en’s League and the Federation of South Af­ri­can Women, of­ten equated na­tional
lib­er­a­tion with wom­en’s lib­er­a­tion.7 Magubane fur­ther ar­gues that women in the
lib­er­a­tion move­ment fo­cused on sex­ism and mi­sog­yny as it appeared in pri­vate or

CRITICAL TIMES 3:3 | DECEMBER 2020 | 490

home life, thus maintaining the bi­nary be­tween pri­vate and pub­lic worlds. I share

SPECIAL SECTION
some of the same thoughts and ex­pe­ri­ences of Simamkele Dlakavu, an ac­tiv­ist and
now a PhD can­di­date at Stellenbosch University.8 She writes about Black wom­en’s
ex­pe­ri­ences in so­cial move­ments in gen­er­al, and in the FMF in par­tic­u­lar, and high­
lights the cen­tral­ity of Black fem­i­nism in these move­ments. In the FMF move­ment,
as Black wom­en, we started to crit­i­cally and re­flex­ively en­gage the nar­ra­tive of col­

|
lec­tive lib­er­a­tion, which as­sumed that the stu­dents’ strug­gle did not (re)pro­duce

Global Student Struggles in and against the University

gen­dered inequalities within itself. In our work with the FMF move­ment, many
of us Black women be­gan to feel that we did not be­long in the space of lead­er­
ship and vis­i­bil­i­ty. Considering the het­ero-pa­tri­ar­chal na­ture of re­sis­tance against

Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/critical-times/article-pdf/3/3/488/1542670/488mazibuko.pdf by guest on 04 February 2025

apart­heid, it is no won­der that men such as Mcebo Dlamini and Vuyani Pambo
were of­ten given pres­i­den­tial sta­tus in the move­ment.9 Any other man was also
given the time and at­ten­tion to lead us in song, to ad­dress us, to pro­vide di­rec­tion.
While women and some men were happy to serve by pre­par­ing food for stu­dents
in­volved in pro­tests, this soon felt like a re­quired per­for­mance of our fem­i­nin­i­ty.
Dlakavu re­calls a mo­ment dur­ing FMF that I re­late to deep­ly; I return to it of­ten as a
re­minder of why fem­i­nism is im­por­tant in any so­cial move­ment, gen­er­al­ly, but also
for the pro­ject of de­col­o­ni­za­tion in par­tic­u­lar. Feminism has man­aged to ex­tend
itself in ways that move far be­yond the here and now of pro­test ac­tion. Here, I tell
my story in an au­to­bio­graph­i­cal nar­ra­tive, fol­low­ing Dlakavu, who also draws on
au­to­bi­og­ra­phy to me­mo­ri­al­ize, as she says, (one of ) the many ways Black women
have attempted to dis­rupt and take up space. This par­tic­u­lar mo­ment hap­pened a
few days into FMF.
It must have been the fem­in ­ ist gods that spoke to me that morn­ing. I woke up, put on
a black dress, a col­or­ful head wrap and bold, dark pur­ple lip­stick. I wore white Converse
sneak­ers be­cause, some­how, I felt that a lot of my phys­i­cal mo­bil­ity would be at play. I
ar­rived at the main cam­pus of Wits University in the morn­ing. I proceeded to go to our
meet­ing place, Sol­o­mon Mahlangu House, a place that was once strange when it was still
known as Senate House. Students renamed it af­ter a po­lit­i­cal hero and sol­dier of the Af­ri­
can National Congress’s mil­it­ ary wing, Umkhonto WeSizwe. I re­mem­ber be­ing called out
by a stu­dent ac­tiv­ist to join the other Black women on the other side of Sol­o­mon Mahlangu
House. Although con­fused and not know­ing why we were con­ven­ing sep­a­rately from the
protesting masses, I made my way to the group of wom­en.
The area in which we were stand­ing was cov­ered in beau­ti­ful col­ors displayed on our
heads. Head wraps. More head wraps. More Black wom­en. More mel­a­nin. More . . . b​ ut­
ter. More Black women kept on com­ing into the space, with this aes­thet­ic. I re­mem­ber not
car­ing about whether this was planned or or­ches­trated by any one po­lit­i­cal or­ga­ni­za­tion.
All I could feel was vis­ib­ il­i­ty. Visibility, for Black wom­en, or at least for me, is a feel­ing. A
con­ver­sa­tion started hap­pen­ing among us. It was con­sen­sus: we were go­ing to march and
oc­cupy the cen­ter of the protesting stu­dent body and lead in song. You must un­der­stand

MAZIBUKO | FEMINIST IN THE FALLIST MOVEMENT | 491

that strug­gle songs are a big part of South Af­ri­can pro­test cul­ture. I can­not re­mem­ber the
ex­act song we started with, but I re­mem­ber how we insisted on starting a new song over
the one that was al­ready be­ing sung and led by a group of men. How we were re­ceived—it
was as if we were wag­ing war on our own. I re­mem­ber men say­ing, so loud­ly: “This is not
about wom­en!” and “Stop di­vid­ing us” in the clas­sic com­rade ac­cent many have perfected.
“I am here, I am here,” I thought to my­self with pride, be­cause I was shar­ing a pre­cious
and im­por­tant mo­ment with other Black wom­en. This pride was not an ab­sence of doubt,
how­ev­er, since a feel­ing of demotivation sud­denly came over me, and I be­gan to ask my­self:
“What are we do­ing?” These contrasting feel­ings, as I have come to learn, are part of liv­

Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/critical-times/article-pdf/3/3/488/1542670/488mazibuko.pdf by guest on 04 February 2025

ing a fem­i­nist life. That life is one that rec­og­nizes com­plex­ity and con­tra­dic­tion. Living a
fem­i­nist life means I can be both proud of fem­i­nist in­ter­ven­tion but also demotivated and
in doubt as I nav­i­gate this world through a lens un­der­stood as sen­sa­tional and ir­rel­e­vant.
Let’s now skip ahead a few mo­ments and work from that place of doubt; that
is, from the place of in­ter­play be­tween demotivation and the fem­i­nist I was still
be­com­ing. Former pres­i­dent Ja­cob Zuma an­nounced a 0 per­cent fee in­crease for
2016 af­ter days of cam­pus shut­downs and pro­test ac­tions by stu­dents across the
coun­try. Shortly af­ter this an­nounce­ment, stu­dents felt the pres­sure to turn their
at­ten­tion back to pre­par­ing for ex­ams, since the 2015 ac­a­demic year was com­ing
to a close and qual­i­fi­ca­tions were at stake. We returned in Jan­u­ary 2016, hope­ful
that the 0 per­cent fee in­crease would be a step­ping-stone to free ed­u­ca­tion. But
we also car­ried some­thing else from the 2015 FMF move­ment: rage, our roots of
bit­ter­ness and the deep­ened de­sire for de­col­o­ni­za­tion, which is a much broader
pro­ject. I have interpreted this pro­ject as one of risk-tak­ing, of fem­i­nism, of inter­
sectionality.
It is 2016, and I return to Wits University as an hon­ors stu­dent and a tu­tor for first-
year so­ci­ol­ogy stu­dents. I am an­gry. I am enraged. The FMF move­ment left many scars
but also en­cour­aged me to find ways for this rage in­side of me to be pro­duc­tive. Every­
thing white and ev­ery­thing mas­cu­lin­ized is a trig­ger. And so, I embarked on a teach­ing
pro­ject that would place em­pha­sis on Black life and the im­por­tance of cre­at­ing a free­think­
ing space. At the start of all­of my tu­to­ri­als, I had said to those that I tutored that I only
had two rules in the tu­to­ri­al: I am Black and I am a wom­an. I am a Black fem­i­nist, and
what­ever I say would ob­vi­ously be read along those lines, so we should not be afraid to
ap­proach class con­tent through var­i­ous in­ter­sec­tions. I was tak­ing risks by presenting as
Black and fem­in ­ ist and en­cour­ag­ing stu­dents to ask dif
­fi­cult ques­tions and to en­gage in
dif ­fi­cult top­ics. One day, the risks I had taken cul­mi­nated in what felt like a dis­ci­plin­ary
hear­ing of sorts af­ter a white woman stu­dent had reported me for be­ing ag­gres­sive, vul­gar,
and a bully in my tu­to­ri­als. The day I was called in by the head of my de­part­ment was the
same day my tu­to­ri­als were sched­uled to take place. In that meet­ing, I was told that this
white woman had requested to be moved from my tu­to­rial and had asked for an apol­o­g y. I
left that meet­ing feel­ing com­pletely shocked that white women would have that much in­flu­

CRITICAL TIMES 3:3 | DECEMBER 2020 | 492

ence over ­sys­tems used to gov­ern us, to re­mind us of our place. I was also shocked be­cause

SPECIAL SECTION
of the way the de­part­ment approached the sit­u­a­tion, of­fer­ing lit­tle to no sup­port for me
while protecting and act­ing on be­half of a stu­dent who hap­pens to be a white woman and
who felt I sim­ply did not un­der­stand her and failed to rec­og­nize her life ex­pe­ri­ences. I could
not teach that day. I sent out emails to my class and left a note on the door of our tu­to­rial
venue ask­ing them to at­tend the tu­to­rial led by some­one I now con­sider a friend. I cried and

|
cried and cried, and I thought to my­self: This is the price you pay for be­ing Black and fem­i­

Global Student Struggles in and against the University

nist. This is the price you pay for chal­leng­ing existing ways of know­ing, of learn­ing, and of
teach­ing. This is what you get for think­ing that intersectionality can chal­lenge leg­a­cies of

Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/critical-times/article-pdf/3/3/488/1542670/488mazibuko.pdf by guest on 04 February 2025

co­lo­nial­ism. This is what you get when you aren’t . . . ​white.
I re­al­ized then that part of the fallist move­ment also in­volves mov­ing in­ward
and clamping down on sites of learn­ing and teach­ing. If Black fem­i­nist thought is
invested in the free speak­ing, be­com­ing, and be­ing of Black wom­en, then pa­tri­
ar­chy is not in sol­i­dar­ity with Black fem­i­nist ob­jec­tives be­cause they threaten the
sus­tain­abil­ity of pa­tri­ar­chal dom­i­na­tion. While I have al­ways felt that I am a fem­i­
nist, I think that it was only dur­ing my ex­pe­ri­ence of FMF in 2015 that I truly be­gan
“liv­ing a fem­i­nist life.”10 Through this ex­pe­ri­ence, I re­al­ized that Black fem­i­nism
chal­lenges not only the sus­tain­abil­ity of pa­tri­ar­chy, but also all­other co­lo­nial con­
di­tions, in­clud­ing cap­i­tal­ism, sys­tem­atic era­sure, and ep­i­ste­mic vi­o­lence. While I
do have ex­pe­ri­ence be­ing on the ground and adding to the num­ber of stu­dents in
strug­gle, I have also been chal­leng­ing the lit­er­ary and ac­a­demic sta­tus quo while
be­ing un­apol­o­get­i­cally fem­i­nist in my meth­od.
Intersectionality re­fers to the rec­og­ni­tion of mul­ti­ple forms of op­pres­sion.
It is a de­lib­er­ate in­tru­sion upon sin­gle-cat­e­gory an­a­ly­ses. It is not, or should not
be, a mat­ter of “op­pres­sion Olym­pics,” where spe­cific strug­gles are pit­ted against
each oth­er. We should not have to sac­ri­fice one strug­gle in fa­vor of an­oth­er. We are
in­stead obliged to work for and stand in sol­i­dar­ity with strug­gles fought by disen­
franchised groups other than our own. Fallism is de­vel­oped from the urge not only
to rec­og­nize mul­ti­ple forms of op­pres­sion but also to work ac­tively against these
interlocking op­pres­sions. Therefore, in a South Af­ri­can con­text, intersectionality
would be more than the rec­og­ni­tion of the ways in which sys­tems al­lo­cate dis­ad­
van­tage, pain, and strug­gle. Fallism teaches us that these op­pres­sive sys­tems can
operate as gifts that we can use to de­stroy the sys­tem that mar­gin­al­izes us. The
mul­ti­plic­ity of op­pres­sion re­quires us to use mul­ti­ple tools in our strat­e­gies, as
we seek to sur­vive in the face of, and to con­test, interlocking op­pres­sions. I have
learned, through the cur­rent stu­dent move­ment, which places such heavy em­pha­
sis on de­col­o­ni­za­tion, to say, “I am also here,” to­gether with other Black wom­en. I
am a fem­i­nist kill­joy who is met with strong re­ac­tions and read as sen­sa­tional when
I speak.11 I am a fem­i­nist kill­joy in­side and out­side the class­room, one whose seat
at the ta­ble has been re­voked many times be­cause of this. I am a fem­i­nist who has

MAZIBUKO | FEMINIST IN THE FALLIST MOVEMENT | 493

taken risks and has also made fem­i­nist mis­takes. I am a fem­i­nist who has re­al­ized
that while I may face mul­ti­ple op­pres­sions, they never place me above or ahead of
an­other Black wom­an. I am a fem­i­nist whose re­la­tion­ships with some of the men
I love have taken a back seat; be­cause I un­der­stand that these men ben­e­fit from
the cur­rent sys­tem and re­pro­duce it. I am a fem­in ­ ist whose heart heals a lit­tle bit
more each time I hear that some­where in the world, disenfranchised com­mu­ni­ties
are fight­ing back and are win­ning some of their power back. I am a Black woman
who is ca­pa­ble of sing­ing strug­gle songs, be­ing part of na­ked pro­tests, par­tici­pat­
ing in con­fer­ences, events, sem­i­nars, and writ­ing work­shops on the plight of Black
wom­en, gen­der non-confirming, non-bi­na­r y, and dis­abled peo­ple. I am also a Black

Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/critical-times/article-pdf/3/3/488/1542670/488mazibuko.pdf by guest on 04 February 2025

woman who has now learned that even go­ing back to a place of rest con­trib­utes
to dis­man­tling the sta­tus quo, be­cause we find strength, healing, and cre­a­tiv­ity
in rest. Defined in this way, fallism, as it is de­vel­oped with the ben­e­fit of hav­ing
en­gaged intersectionality, makes room for us not only to rec­og­nize our com­plex
positionalities but also to carve out var­i­ous strat­e­gies that equip us to do the work
of ac­tively dis­abling normativities. Being fem­i­nist and fallist means know­ing that
we need to write, to cry, to fight, to mo­bi­lize, to teach, to en­cour­age one an­oth­er, to
step back, to show up in num­bers or alone, to crush the sys­tems that both op­press
and con­nect us. Being fem­i­nist and fallist means be­ing pro­duc­tive in the si­mul­ta­
neous de­struc­tion of mul­ti­ple forms of op­pres­sion in a num­ber of vary­ing ways.

MBALI MAZIBUKO is a PhD can­di­date in wom­en’s and gen­der stud­ies at the University
of the Western Cape, South Africa. She com­pleted an un­der­grad­u­ate de­gree with hon­
ors and a mas­ter’s de­gree in so­ci­ol­ogy at Wits University in Johannesburg. Her ac­a­demic
per­son­al­ity is shaped by af­f ect the­o­ries, rage, gen­der-based vi­o­lence, fem­i­nist meth­od­
ol­o­gies, and fem­i­nist ped­o­log­i­cal jus­tice. Her cur­rent work raises ques­tions about re­bel­
lious fem­i­nin­i­ty, sen­su­al­i­ty, and sex­u­al­ity and is comitted to con­trib­ut­ing to the de­vel­op­
ment of a fem­i­nist ar­chive in South Africa. The Wits Centre for Diversity Studies, where
she was a re­search in­tern, was one of the ma­jor in­flu­en­tial con­texts within which she
wrote this ar­ti­cle. She lives a deeply fem­i­nist life, which means she lives a dan­ger­ous yet
re­ward­ing life, as she comes to the re­al­i­za­tion that she be­longs deeply to her­self.

Notes
1. Ahmed, “Feminism Is Sensational.”
2. Anzio Jacobs defines fallism as a commitment to the destruction of all forms of oppression,
simultaneously. See Jacobs, “Outcasts.” Similarly, Kimberlé Crenshaw offers a definition
of intersectionality as the recognition of multiple forms of oppression. See Crenshaw,
“Mapping the Margins.” There is something to be said about fallism having possibly
developed from intersectionality but operating within a context of African activism and
African feminism.
3. Ndlovu, “Journey through Wits.”

CRITICAL TIMES 3:3 | DECEMBER 2020 | 494

4. Davids and Waghid, “#FeesMustFall.”

SPECIAL SECTION
5. Davids and Waghid, “#FeesMustFall.”
6. Mazibuko, “Loss, Rage, and Laughter.”
7. Magubane, “Attitudes towards Feminism.”
8. Dlakavu, “Black Women, Building a Movement.”
9. Dlakavu, “Black Women, Building a Movement.” Dlamini and Pambo are student activists
from Wits University. Both men were leaders of their student-based political parties at

|
the time. Pambo was affiliated with the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and Dlamini

Global Student Struggles in and against the University

with the Progressive Youth Alliance (PYA), which is an extension of the national party, the
African National Congress (ANC).
10. Ahmed, “Feminism Is Sensational.”

Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/critical-times/article-pdf/3/3/488/1542670/488mazibuko.pdf by guest on 04 February 2025

11. Ahmed, “Feminism Is Sensational.”

Works Cited
Ahmed, Sa­rah. “Feminism Is Sensational.” In Living a Feminist Life, 21–42. Dur­ham, NC: Duke
University Press, 2017.
Chinguno, Crispen, Morwa Kgoroba, Sello Mashibini, Bafana Nicolas Masilela, Boikhutso Mau­
bane, Nhlanhla Moyo, Andile Mthombeni, and Hlengiwe Ndlovu, eds. Rioting and Writing:
Diaries of Wits Fallists. Johannesburg: Society, Work and Development Institute (SWOP),
2017.
Crenshaw, Kimberlé. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics and Violence
against Women of Color.” Stanford Law Review 43, no.6 (1991): 1241–99.
Da­vids, Nuraan, and Yusef Waghid. “#FeesMustFall: History of South Af­ri­can Student Protests
Reflects Inequality’s Grip.” Mail and Guardian, Oc­to­ber 10, 2016.
Dlakavu, Simamkele. “Black Women, Building a Movement and Refusal to be Erased.” In Chin­
guno et al., Rioting and Writing, 110–15.
Ja­cobs, C. Anzio. “The Outcasts: No Retreat, No Surrender.” In Chinguno et al., Rioting and Writ­
ing, 116–120.
Magubane, Zine. “Attitudes to­wards Feminism among Women in the ANC, 1950–1990: A Theo­
retical Re-in­ter­pre­ta­tion.” In Vol. 4 of The Road to Democracy in South Africa, edited by
Bridget Theron, 975–1033. Pretoria: UNISA Press, 2010.
Mazibuko, Mbali. “Loss, Rage, and Laughter: Texturing Protest Action against Sexual Violence on
the South Af­ri­can Campus and Its Existence Online.” MA diss., Wits University, 2018.
Ndlovu, Hlengiwe. “A Journey through Wits #FeesMustFall 2015/2016.” In Chinguno et al., Rioting
and Writing, 30–37.

MAZIBUKO | FEMINIST IN THE FALLIST MOVEMENT | 495