Larissa Hollis

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ODE TO RESISTANCE

“Let’s do anal with Mrs (redacted). Oh wait, she is lesbian.” Written on the suggestion board today by a 12-year-old at an all-boys school. The subject of the message is the first female vice-principal in the 171-year history of the school. – Excerpt from artist’s journal, 9/10/2020

Reading this abhorrent message takes me back to Cape Town in 2002. I’m at the Refinery, my place of employment at the time. A male colleague announces to the entire bar that he dislikes me so much that he would like to fuck me “up the bum”. There are those who would excuse this brutal and humiliating announcement as men’s locker-room talk, as they did Donald Trump’s Access Hollywood remarks, but both these incidents serve to exemplify the muting of women through shaming and violence. As Assoc. Prof. Virginia MacKenny, my supervisor, put it in conversation about the incident, these are the unwelcome reminders of the “influence of the patriarchal worldview – present in even young boys – to women, especially women in authority.”