Fallist black female leaders : Persona and performance

Abstract

As the aftermath of the Fallist movement - “a movement that was to have lasting impact on history” (Ramaru 2017:89) - is slowly sinking in to South African Universities an aftermath of complex social issues is left in its wake. On the forefront of this aftermath is the question: “What it means to be a black woman or LGBTQIA people in institutions that still celebrates misogyny and white supremacy?” (Matandela 2015: 1). Answering this question is vital when considering the impact of the Fallist movement on Black female leaders and the performance of their personas on the current political stage. In an era marked by the intersectionality of social justice issues the research question beckons, how is the double bind of race and gender on the Black African female leader represented through the performance of a visual leadership persona? This question is explicitly asked in terms of the South African Fallist movements by tracking the representation of said leadership persona through the visual representations performed on social media as well as national and international news media. The above research aims to contribute to the understanding of the role played by the representation of Black African female leaders in terms of a post-colonial era, where the hypothesis exists that one oppressive regime has merely replaced another. This hypothesis is considered through the perspective of alienation and the creation of a “new” other.