On Patriarchy and Learning the Language of Oppession

In Aug 2022, a string of women's protest videos and images started popping up on my FB feed under the hashtag hashtag

#PatrickMustFall. The women were protesting about food poverty and gender-based violence at a traffic circle in the upmarket Constantia area in Cape Town. 'WHO IS PATRICK?!' I wondered. An executive? A government minister? I started clicking through profiles and reaching out to my network but no one could tell me who Patrick was or what he had done. When I finally got hold of the organiser, it turned out that Patrick was ... Patriarchy.

As a communications practitioner, I thought the campaign was perfect and also realised it was 100% organic. Henriette Abrahams, the founder of Women's Assembly Movement explained that WAM is a 'working class movement that addresses working class women's issues' and that they had been 'bringing women together and giving them political education .'

During one of their workshops, some of the women couldn't immediately pronounce or latch onto the word 'patriarchy'. One of the woman said that she would just call it 'Patrick' and the name stuck. And THAT is how Patrick ended up on protest boards in Constantia and across Facebook during South Africa's women's month in 2022.

Abrahams expanded that their political education consisted of looking at visible and invisible violence through a feminist lens, they interrogated women, health and power as well as race and class. This brought women to the realisation that 'we can fight gender-based violence, we can fight for food security and all of these things, but at at the base of all of these is patriarchy.'

WAM is a movement close to my heart because this education is needed. There is a huge educational gap between activism and feminism that is deeply rooted in language and class. I myself didn't know what patriarchy was until my thirties when I launched The Womxn Show. I was the producer but I received a strong education via my guests. This was the point really: to take this information, these issues and especially the language into communities and into people's living rooms.

I know there is a lot to be learned from the reports and white papers and research that is being put out constantly, but as a woman, a journalist and activist and a grassroots feminist, we will never be free - as we are now seeing - until ALL women are free. And all women will never be free until they learn the language of our oppression.

To watch the full episode with Henriette and Pheliswa from WAM, see

To learn more about WAM, their movement and their educational materials, see https://www.tshisimani.org.za/the-womens-assembly-camp-2022-and-patrickmustfall/

#InternationalWomensMonth hashtag #ThinkGlobalActLocal

*Lenina Rassool is a journalist, activist and multimedia producer in Cape Town, South Africa, with a focus on social justice, gender-based violence, civic engagement and mental health. To see more of my work or contact me, see https://leninarassool.wixsite.com/mysite