Allyship, particularly from those in positions of privilege, is more than a gesture — it’s a moral responsibility. True allyship to all women demands humility, self-reflection, and a willingness to lean into discomfort, writes Nadeem Mahomed, Director of Employment Law at Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr.
As a lawyer, I was trained to view the law as a powerful mechanism to shape and structure society; an instrument to right wrongs, resolve uncertainty and impose order. In many contexts, this is partially true: the law can provide stability and predictability, particularly where the rule of law is firmly upheld. Yet even in such contexts, the stability law brings is often layered upon histories of exclusion and violence. Often, the legal system upholds the prevailing social order even when that order is unjust.
Even where laws are progressive, we cannot assume they automatically yield justice. The transformation of moral aspirations into legal principles does not guarantee the realisation of justice in lived experience. The association between law and justice is persistent, but dangerously simplistic. Take apartheid South Africa as a stark example: legality and systemic injustice were often synonymous. Racial segregation, economic disenfranchisement and the violent subjugation of black people were legal norms, sanctioned by the judiciary and entrenched through statute. The same system upheld deeply patriarchal structures. In the Cape Colony, sanctions for sexual crimes against women...
Claims that Brigitte Macron is a transgender woman first emerged online in 2021 and have since gone viral. “Two billion people have been exposed to this story in French and 2.5 billion in English,...