carine hartman 2021

By Carine Hartman

Chief sub-editor


Only hire women if they’re as good as their male counterparts

Use women during all the World Cups; plenty of them – just make sure they’re as good as their male counterparts.


A woman should not be getting a job just because she’s a woman – and before the feminists go woke, I have evidence.

Take the Qatar World Cup, for instance. Unlike the sports-mad men who all have DStv, I had to get my kick out of the SABC – and therein lies my problem. Come halftime, the DStvers have – if I remember correctly from the good old days when I was one – superstars like English football pundit Michael Owen intelligently unpacking the first half for you.

A controversial decision in that half? You’ll hear expert opinions on why the whistle should’ve been silent. Not so with the SABC. I get a loud woman in an even louder pink dress unpacking nothing at the pitch of ladu-u-u-u-ma continuously thundering as if a goal has just been scored.

Flanking her is another woman clearly reciting what some expert is telling her in her very visible earpiece. Poor Doctor Khumalo – yes, at least I got one expert in the form of a former Bafana player and star midfielder for Kaizer Chiefs – who, in his soft voice, once just asked why so-and-so was not played on the left?

Silence, even from Pink Dress… And that’s why I say no woman should get a job just because she’s a woman and society prescribe that women need to be seen. Seen, but not heard, I say.

Especially if their only attributes are being loud and proud, because of soccer, they know as much as I do: dangerously little. But to pacify the feminists, I have a suggestion for the SABC: please use women during all the World Cups; plenty of them – just make sure they’re as good as their male counterparts.

And a counterpart is the crux here: get a Banyana Banyana player to talk to the Bafana player. Hells bells, get Banyana’s coach Desiree Ellis to answer Khuma- lo’s question, because she can.

Having led her team to win the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations against Morocco, she knows what she’s talking about because her team has faced Brazil – the match I watched – and knows her right from Khumalo’s left. But it seems big earrings and a tight pink dress will beat a knowledgeable woman every time – and women are poorer for it…

READ: Bonga is proof there is power in the English language

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