Twitter slates Ayanda Dlodlo for comment on ‘real women’

Minister of Communications Ayanda Dlodlo found herself on the wrong side of Twitter after her comments about women and abusive relationships on Friday.

In a series of tweets, Dlodlo said the women of South Africa should remember they were who they were because of Oliver R Tambo’s dedication to women’s rights.

“At every Jan 8 statement, he spoke about the women of SA,” she said, urging women not to take the “freedom” they have for granted.

She then slammed “wounded” men who raped women. “Real men do not rape.”

Dlodlo further spoke about “real” women and abusive relationships, comments that left many thinking she did not understand the pain of being in one.

She wrote: “It is only a real woman who walks away from an abusive relationship. Women, let us walk away from abusive relationships,” further saying women should do it for their children to teach them abuse was not unacceptable.

https://twitter.com/MinAyandaDlodlo/status/901021194782208000

However, her followers were not pleased with her tweet, calling it “nonsense”.

“How about. It’s only a real man that doesn’t abuse a woman. Not the nonsense written here,” wrote one, while another said the issue of domestic violence was too complex to imply women who stayed were not “real”.

“By whose standards is the term ‘real’ anyway?” asked one.

These were some of the comments on Twitter:

“I actually cannot understand how she thought this statement was okay, as a woman nje yena self!”

“Sis Ayanda, do an NDZ delete this tweet and then blame a junior… this tweet of yours about to explode (in negative sense I mean).”

“Walking away? then they find another woman to abuse or even kill. Minister these men must go to JAIL!”

“So vele you decided to air your ‘I just had tea with Bathabile Dlamini’ views here? You’re exhausting.”

“PS: I’m a survivor of 20 yrs of emotional abuse… I was a real woman then & remain a real woman to this day… Catch a wake up lady!”

“Are you saying women who remain in abusive relationships even for the sake of children aren’t REAL women? Victimizing abuse victims.”

Poet Zakes Mda asked Dlodlo to rephrase her tweet.

“You mean well, but smacks of victim-blaming. She stayed, was murdered, was therefore not a REAL woman,” he told her, to which she agreed.

The minister said her tweet was wrongly phrased. “The gist was that if you walk away from an abusive relationship it doesn’t make you less of a woman,” she added.

What the minister meant to say, she later clarified, was that even though families always urged women to stay in abusive relationships because they would be seen as weak, she was urging them to walk away.