Pumla Dineo Gqola

thumb|Pumla Dineo Gqola Pumla Dineo Gqola (born 3 December, 1972) is a South African academic, writer, and feminist, best known for her 2015 book Rape: A South African Nightmare, which won the 2016 Alan Paton Award, and Female Fear Factory, which won the 2022 Best Non-Fiction Monograph Award from the South African National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS). Quotes I am a southern African feminist author and academic. Gqola introduced herself while discussing her writing career, feminism, and the publication of Female Fear Factory. I was a very enthusiastic reader as a child. While explaining how she became a writer, Gqola credited her lifelong reading habit and the encouragement she received from her parents. I think those of us who really believed in the project that this was the right way to change this country, I think we underestimated that critique that said too many compromises had been made. Gqola reflected on the country's democratic transition and acknowledged that many underestimated the long-term consequences of political compromises. But I also disagree completely with young people who say nothing has changed. I mean as messed up and as flawed as it is, it's not the country I grew up in. Gqola contrasted apartheid South Africa with the democratic era, arguing that despite ongoing inequalities, significant changes had taken place. The commitment to actively oppose and end patriarchy is one. Writing about feminism, Gqola explained that despite different feminist traditions, opposition to patriarchy remains one of their shared foundational commitments. Patriarchy works like other systems of oppression, like racism and capitalism, to value some people and brutalise others. Gqola discussed the interconnected nature of patriarchy, racism, and capitalism, arguing that these systems reinforce one another. We are socialised into the Female Fear Factory in ways similar to how we are made fluent in language. Gqola explained the central argument of *Female Fear Factory*: that fear is systematically taught to women through repeated social messages and experiences. It is a time for rigour and not a time for safety. Gqola made this statement during the 2018 TB Davie Memorial Lecture at the University of Cape Town, arguing that universities should encourage rigorous thinking and intellectual risk rather than comfort or self-censorship. To pretend that threats to matters of academic freedom emerge exclusively from sources outside the academy requires that we look away from pressure on scholars to self-censor. In her TB Davie Memorial Lecture, Gqola argued that academic freedom is threatened not only by governments and external actors but also by internal institutional pressures that encourage self-censorship. We know thinking is risky work. Gqola emphasized that genuine scholarship requires intellectual courage and a willingness to confront difficult ideas. Academic freedom is about testing the limits of this risk and helping clarify for all of us, even if we don't agree, why academic freedom continues to matter. Gqola explained that universities should be places where disagreement is examined critically rather than avoided. We will do well to remember that students have always been at the heart of academic freedom debates in this country. Gqola highlighted the historical role of South African students in defending academic freedom, linking earlier struggles with the #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall movements. Universities have to deal with discomfort made possible by a new generation of students. Reflecting on recent student movements, Gqola argued that universities should engage with difficult challenges raised by students rather than dismiss them. External links Category:Women born in the 1970s Category:Academics from South Africa Category:Authors from South Africa Category:1972 births Category:Living people