Political influence, double standards, and silencing women

Phumzile van Damme Transcript

Kassia Binkowski
Hello, Sabrina!

Kassia Binkowski
Hi Kassia, how are you?

Kassia Binkowski
I am good. How are you?

Sabrina Merage Naim
I'm doing well, I am feeling like things are starting to get back to a good healthy swing. Let's hope that that stays the case for a while.

Kassia Binkowski
Absolutely, I have to acknowledge that I'm currently recording this like squatting in my bedroom, which is not how I usually roll. The irony being that I kind of pushed my kids downstairs and begged them to be quiet for a few minutes.

Kassia Binkowski
Did you have to bribe them? Or are you just beg

Kassia Binkowski
Not yet, I'm one step away.

Sabrina Merage Naim
Okay.

Kassia Binkowski
I'm willing to, I'm willing to. But the topic of today's conversation is all about silencing women, which I was just like, "Shh! Shh! Shh! Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet, be quiet, just for five minutes!" But I want to talk about double standards, because I think it exists all around us in a lot of different ways for men and women, for boys and girls. But the one that I think is really interesting, that the focus of this conversation in this episode today is about is the ways that we silence girls, where we expect young boys, men to be loud to lean into those leadership qualities to be bold, and we silence those girls from a very young age. And I think that's still happening all around us.

Sabrina Merage Naim
Yeah, I think what's interesting is the reality of this podcast is that every single conversation regardless of the topic, regardless of where our guests are from in the world, every single conversation has a very large element of double standards, right? And the way that we deal with that in young girls in their upbringing, and the way that we treat- and this is even still represented in film and pop culture, and all these things that we're just seeing constantly, and the ways that we are taking in the information from society is still so prevalent, that the boys are encouraged to act one way and the girls are encouraged, or discouraged, I should say, to act certain ways. And we're still doing that to our kids.

Kassia Binkowski
And I think it has a really, really lasting effect on how they go about their life, and the roles that they fill and the way that they use their voices. I got to have the most fascinating conversation this week with Phumzile Van Damme. She grew up in South Africa, she currently lives in Oslo, Norway, and she has been told her entire career to be quieter, to not speak up, to not leverage her influence, to be smaller in all of the ways. And she is anything but, she is this huge personality and she has had such a global voice and influence. And she attributes a lot of that to the women around her growing up. Her mother and her grandmother were the exact same way.

Sabrina Merage Naim
And I think the fact that she happens to be a black woman, also in politics, and as an activist, is additional layer, in terms of how we treat black women or women of color, who have loud voices and loud personalities. But she needed to have that kind of presence in order to push through some of the things that she did. And I think what we're going to hear is how important that was for her in her life and in her career.

Kassia Binkowski
I mean, the personality traits that she leaned into and took full advantage of enabled her to be elected as a member of parliament for South Africa at age 31. That was huge.

Sabrina Merage Naim
So young, wow.

Kassia Binkowski
Yeah, incredible! She was part of a movement of women that have slowly filled these leadership positions in South Africa. And we talk about the influence that it's had, but we also talk about how hard it has been, and the many ways in which she's had to work harder than her male peers, to leverage that influence, to activate her voice, to be a voice for all of the other black women around her, and all of the attempts that have been made to push her out.

Sabrina Merage Naim
Well, I haven't seen you be this jazzed about a conversation in a while, so I am super excited to hear it.

Kassia Binkowski
It is awesome. It is awesome. She's an inspiration, you guys. There is so much to learn from this conversation with Phumzile, so go ahead and take a listen.

Kassia Binkowski
Phumzile, thank you so so much for joining me this morning.

Phumzile Van Damme
Thank you so much for having me, I'm looking forward to our chat.

Kassia Binkowski
Yeah, and I should clarify, it's, you know, 8:30 in the morning here in Denver, Colorado. That is not the case where you are in Oslo, Norway.

Phumzile Van Damme
No, it's almost 4pm and it's time for coffee for you, but it's a time for a glass of wine for me.

Kassia Binkowski
I was gonna say "Cocktail time!" I mean, feel free to pour something, the conversation will only get better, it will only improve.

Phumzile Van Damme
Oh, maybe I will.

Kassia Binkowski
No judgment here, truly. So I am super, super excited to have this conversation with you. We're going to be talking about all the things, everything from politics, to disinformation, to your experience growing up in South Africa. But I want to start at the beginning, I really want to hear more about what you were like as a little girl.

Phumzile Van Damme
So I was a very quiet and shy little girl, which I still am. And people don't believe that I'm shy, I'm an introvert! You know, I am able to kind of give bursts of energy to my different passions, but I need a long time to recharge my batteries. So as a little girl I was that way. But the only time I would kind of, you know, speak up in public because when I encountered injustice. I always tell people that I had my first protest, my first strike in fifth grade. So our teacher, I don't know what had happened in the classroom, but she'd said no break time plus no recess. And I thought this was a huge injustice, and I got my classmates to make placards.

Kassia Binkowski
I love this.

Phumzile Van Damme
Yeah. Fifth grade, I got all my classmates to make placards. I don't remember what we wrote, but it was basically expressing our great dissatisfaction with this decision that was made. And I got into so much trouble, went to the principal's office, my parents were called in, and you know, pick me up from school on the drive home. And I think, "oh my gosh, I'm in such big trouble." You know, I was kind of tense all the way home. And my parents didn't say anything until years later. And my mother told me, she was proud of me.

Kassia Binkowski
Oh, I love that! Why do you think it took her years?

Phumzile Van Damme
I don't know. I think she herself was kind of involved in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. So she lived in Swaziland, which is a small country next to South Africa, and she was a student, and she used to do kind of underground covert missions. And this was something she didn't really speak about. But I think she kind of at an early age, encouraged our activism, she encouraged my independence. So I think it was just her saying, "Look, I'm really okay with you speaking up when you see something wrong." And it sounds like she was actually grooming me for a career in politics. Not at all, but I think she was just, you know, encouraging that kind of spirit of activism or speaking up against injustice. So yeah, I'd actually forgotten that story. And people always ask me, "when did your activism start?" In fifth grade.

Kassia Binkowski
Fifth grade? Yeah. Recess, over the most important things!

Phumzile Van Damme
Yeah, it's quite crazy.

Kassia Binkowski
Did your classmates love you? Did they adore you? Were you so celebrated?

Phumzile Van Damme
I don't actually even remember a lot of those details. I think kind of the memory's also been taken over by the trauma of being taken to the principal's office, and wondering why my parents didn't say anything, did they forget, did they know... I don't remember that. It was quite crazy.

Kassia Binkowski
So in the US, at least, we talk about kind of the double standard that still exists for boys' and girls' personalities. And the fact that we celebrate, you know, the loud leadership quality in little boys still, and we work really hard, unfortunately, to silence it in little girls. Despite best efforts, I think that's still very apparent. Did you experience this? I mean, were there nicknames? Was there any backlash for those bold leadership qualities?

Phumzile Van Damme
In my childhood I will say no, because I grew up in a family where speaking up was encouraged. And I spent a lot of time with my grandmother, and she emphasized a lot that we were equal. I'll give an example. So we often have traditional ceremonies where there was a slaughtering of a cow. And my uncles and my cousins were kind of part of that. And one of my uncle says, "Go away, this is men's work. You're not supposed to be here." So I went to my grandmother and I told her this. She was very upset. She got up and she said, "There's no such thing, go and get involved. There's no such thing as 'this is men's work, this is women's work.'" So I actually have a lot of her personality. For example, they would have community meetings and women were not allowed to speak, and she would always speak. My grandfather would kind of recoil in embarrassment, but she'd get up and speak. And she was kind of well known in the neighborhood for this woman who takes no nonsense from anyone. So from my childhood, I didn't really experience much of that. I think I only experienced that when I actually was an adult and I went into formal politics. And it was such a difficult concept for me to process, having been brought up in an environment where speaking up was celebrated and encouraged and my gender didn't matter at all. So that's when I experienced it. And I think it was a subject of a lot of psychological torment, because it required me to go against kind of what I was taught from a very young age and go against who I am, which is I speak up, and I'm not afraid to.

Kassia Binkowski
And we're going to dive into that, I think it's going to really be the focus of the conversation. But before we do, I want to understand better I mean, clearly, your mother and your grandmother were huge influences on you, however, you know, subtly and subconsciously. I mean, their activism, their voices, their, you know, complete commitment to speaking their mind as they saw fit. Was there backlash on them? I mean, I have to imagine they were of a generation where that was not the norm.

Phumzile Van Damme
So my grandmother was born in the 1920s, and my mom in the 1960s, just to kind of frame the generation. And my grandmother lived in a very, traditional rural, South Africa, Africa. And my mom was more, kind of, a more modern kind of hippie era, if you will, 70s 80s. And I mean, there haven't been stories of a lot of backlash from my grandmother. I think she was a larger than life personality, and like I say, she was well known in the neighborhood. You know, if something happened, we just go to my grandmother and be like, "that person said this," and she'd get up. And she was like, "they're short, stocky women" and she was very defensive over her family. And my mother, you know, they never spoke about any backlash. I think they both made a concerted effort to, I don't know if it's protect, protect us from that kind of world. But yeah, I'm actually for the first time thinking about this.

Kassia Binkowski
Well, I feel like as grown women, we have a lot of conversations, or at least in my experience with my mother and my grandmother, now as adults, that I didn't have obviously growing up, you know. And I get a window into their lives and their realities. And I just wonder if that's been something that you guys have bonded over if there's been, you know, kind of shared trauma over social backlash and things like that, but maybe that hasn't been the case.

Phumzile Van Damme
No, my mom was very kind of different. She always swam upstream and that for me, at a time, you know, when you're trying to fit in, it was difficult. Because you know, kids would always ask, "ooh your mom, look at the decor in your house. Why does it look-" because she collected a lot of vintage furniture and art books and, and like "Wow, your family's house, it looks like a museum. Why does it look like this?" Yeah, my mom was really different. And I would see the social backlash. And obviously, it was uncomfortable to have kids ask you all these questions about being different. Yeah, and that's not something we've really discussed. But I was brought up with trying to be an individual and be different. For example, my mom refused to buy Barbie dolls for me. And she said, "No, that creates unfair perceptions of beauty." And I was 10.

Kassia Binkowski
But that's amazing! I mean, hell yeah! Good on her for kind of setting those boundaries. And you know...

But at that time I was, like, "really, this sounds amazing, but I would really like a Barbie doll."

Kassia Binkowski
"I hear you and also I still want the doll."

Phumzile Van Damme
"I get it. I don't get it at all, but I would like a Barbie doll because everyone else has one," and me having to explain why I don't have one. But now that I'm an adult, you know, these things make sense now.

Kassia Binkowski
I love that.

Kassia Binkowski
So I want to talk about the kind of gender discrimination landscape at large. I mean, South Africa has had such a public experience and struggle with race dynamics and discrimination. You know, apartheid was obviously a system of institutionalized racism in the country that ended in the early 90s. But the gender discrimination, the history thereof, the evolution thereof, has been far less public. What has that looked like? And how has it evolved differently for black women and white women in the country?

Phumzile Van Damme
It's kind of a painful subject to me. You know, I was young, black and female in politics. You know, firstly, an arena that has traditionally a little bit older, that was traditionally a little bit more male. And I came in with my big opinions and my, you know, everything that I am, and just having things like being interrupted when you're speaking, being told, "you're so emotional, and so aggressive," and all those things. And I really worked hard and aim to do well in my job, I was a workhorse. And then when I started doing well, there were suddenly all these attacks, and I didn't understand it. There were attacks of people feeling threatened, "She's so good, what does she want to do? Does she want to be in power? Does she want to take over our positions?" And there was a lot of... Yeah, the attacks, I just didn't understand them. Because I was like, "I'm doing well, I'm doing my job. Why are you attacking me? Why are all these narratives out there about me? Why is this directive that I'm aggressive?" I'm not aggressive, I'm just forthright. And, you know, a person will know where they stand with me, because I will tell you. So that was my experience, and I know, it's an experience of many other young black women. And not only in politics and corporate, in the private sector. So Africa is a society, for example, where it has one of the highest rates of gender-based violence. I wouldn't say it's a patriarchal country, because I think it's a little bit some simplistic way of viewing it, but I think there is kind of the same culture that views people of color is substandard, the same kind of culture exists with women. And even though it's not as expressed, it's more dull things. You know, that when you're a woman walking down the streets, you don't know whether this is a day you're going to be raped or murdered. And just the act of walking down the streets and all the things you need to think through: "Okay, I need to have a 360 view what's happening all around me. There's a man walking down the street, what's his body language? Is he coming close to me?" So it's the daily trauma of being a woman and not really feeling safe. And the conversation happens continuously, but to see the kind of national trauma that conversations around gender are, is that there will be a big case about young woman murdered or raped, and then there'll be this groundswell of speaking up, and, you know, and country-wide protests, and then it just doesn't really go anywhere.

Kassia Binkowski
It's interesting to hear you say simultaneously, that the country has one of the highest rates of gender violence, and also that you yourself and 1000s of women around you experience criticism for being too aggressive, you know, and too loud, and too emotional. And those are criticisms thrown at women all over the world. You know, we had a fascinating conversation with Dr. Winnie Kiiru, who, if you haven't met, you should meet, is one of the leaders in wildlife conservation out of Kenya. And she was relaying the exact same thing about all of the years of criticism she got for being too emotional, and how instead that's been a real strength for her in her career.

Phumzile Van Damme
I think the experience of women across the globe in the workplace, and just social settings, I think it would pretty much be similar, which is strange, given that, you know, different countries are in different stages of social and economic development, and you'd expect that in a country where there's widespread education, that there'd be less of that kind of attitude. I think the violence is also, you know, there's different types of violence. There's a psychological violence, there's psychological abuse, and there's physical abuse. So in countries that are violent with its high murder rates, the violence against women will tend to be more physical. And you know, there's high rates of femicide, where (and I don't know what the stats are in the US) but you know I've read that there's high rates of femicide, when a woman gets killed, the first person that is looked at is their partner. And so I think it takes different types of violence, it's violence, nonetheless. It is psychological violence to go as a woman in a workplace and be put down and, you know, be denied opportunities to progress. You know, going every day into work, and you know every day is going to be a battle. That is violence. And I think we need to kind of start talking about the different kinds of violence and not only just limit our conversation to physical violence, and talking more about its psychological abuse. And I think maybe framing the conversation about the manner in which women are described as you know, aggressive, and "she's a b word, she's this, she's that," and we sort of move that conversation into- because sometimes people need to be jarred. In order to change, it needs to be jarring and say, "the way that I'm treated is a form of psychological abuse, it's trauma, and the trauma stems from that kind of abuse." And I think maybe we need to start speaking in more of those stronger terms.

Kassia Binkowski
So let's talk about your career in politics.

Phumzile Van Damme
Yeah.

Kassia Binkowski
In 2004, President Thabo Mbeki said "No government in South Africa could ever claim to represent the will of the people if it failed to address the central task of emancipation of women in all its elements. And that includes the government we are privileged to lead." I want to talk about why you decided to go into politics.

Phumzile Van Damme
So I was studying political science and law. And I was kind of almost done with my law degree, and civil procedure, which is kind of very strict, and you need to be within the rules, and my natural, my personalitie is to rebel! I'd like to be given space and creativity to come up with ideas. And I kind of finished university, and I didn't really know what to do. I was kind of, you know, still elected into positions, and I thought of going into politics. And my idea wasn't to become kind of elected. I worked too many years as a political staffer. But obviously, through the years of working as a political staffer, I realized that maybe this is something I'd like to do. So it wasn't kind of a dream that I had from a very young age that I followed, it was something I kind of landed into right by accident. But obviously, as I was in this political career, I worked towards being elected because that was something that I decided I wanted to do. And I think my personality and my beliefs and my principles... I'm a very principled person. And the way I make my decisions is a very principled way, and so I realized that I had these traits and that would mean I would do well in politics, while also fighting this being an introvert. And I remember my very first speech in Parliament, and it was a really big debate, it was the state of the nation. And so I spoke on behalf of the opposition, and I was so nervous. I remember was holding on to my papers so tightly because I was shaking, and then realizing, oh my gosh, I have to turn the page and my hand kind of, it was out of control and doing its own thing. It was like, "Oh! Hand, please!"

Kassia Binkowski
Our audience cannot see you right now, but the hands are flailing!

Phumzile Van Damme
Yes, there's this movie with it. I kept the hand, the Jim Carrey movie. We took the hand, I can't control it. But yeah, I mean, it was challenging in that I had to learn how to break out of my shell and I had a big public speaking fear and so it was kind of a challenge to myself. And, yeah, I really enjoyed it. And I thought I ended up doing it quite well, I love my job, you know.

Kassia Binkowski
I would like the record to show that I would prefer if I was only surrounded by rebellious girls for the rest of my life. Like, yes, everything you are describing about your personality and the dance you're currently doing in the background, that is what I want, right? Surround me with women who aren't afraid to speak their mind, who are going to stand in front of the crowd, even as their hands are shaking, right, because the fear doesn't go away. That's real, we're human. But we do it anyway. So I just want to applaud you for leaning into those personality traits. But then also, you know, moving past the fear to do that hard work. In 2014, you were elected to Parliament at the age of 31. And you broke, or helped break, a gender barrier that once confined women to only 3% of the lawmaking body in South Africa. Today, 42% of all seats in South African Parliament are held by women. What was responsible for that change?

Phumzile Van Damme
So they have quotas, but I guess the real measure of it is the impact that women can have in Parliament. So for example, the ruling party has never had a female president. And I think a few years ago, they had an internal Congress, and the Women's League, so they woman's body or whatever, and they said, "We're not ready for a female president yet."

Kassia Binkowski
Nor are we, so I get it.

Phumzile Van Damme
Yeah. So there's a bias from the men and then the women thinking, some women, because they tend to be a little bit older, still stuck in those beliefs. So that the discrimination that I really receive, for example, that "you're so aggressive, you're so this, you need to change the way you speak," was from a lot of older women.

Kassia Binkowski
Isn't that interesting that that's being passed down between generations of women? You know, despite your generation, working so hard to claw your way into that space.

Phumzile Van Damme
Yeah. So it's fighting an institution, you're fighting patriarchy as an institution. And those beliefs don't only come from men, but from women, you know, "you want to speak softer, don't be so aggressive." I remember this man, when I first came into parliament, brand new, and I had red lipstick. And this member of parliament, she was a woman, I really looked up at her, she was really, really great, you know, she could stand at the podium without a speech and speak. And when we were outside, she came with her husband. And the husband said, and I had red lipstick, and he said, "People don't like progressive women. Don't wear such bright lipstick, they're never going to take you seriously." And this woman who I saw, and I thought was so powerful, and I looked up to and then seeing that her husband basically kind of had her under his thumb, I think it was very jarring for me. And also just a point of rebellion because it was like, "Red lipstick! Pink lipstick! Red bright lipstick all the time!"

Kassia Binkowski
"I have some lipstick!"

Phumzile Van Damme
How dare you, how dare you? But yeah, I think that was an early experience where I was like, "Wow. So I'm supposed to change who I am to be acceptable? Well, I'm gonna just do the exact opposite and not going to be acceptable anymore. And I'm going to make people uncomfortable so that we can have these difficult conversations."

Kassia Binkowski
How did that serve you? What was the response?

Phumzile Van Damme
No it wasn't easy. I will not lie. It was not easy. It was difficult because it put me in a permanent state of fight or flight. But I started putting myself in this frame of mind where I was like, "I'm not really doing this for me. It's going to be difficult for me, it's always going to be difficult, but I need to do it for the younger people that are going to come behind me," because I'd seen young people come in and be bullied into submission. And because it was not possible to bully me into submission because I'd always fight back, I just started saying, you know, "I am going to be under fire a lot all the time. And it's okay. And this is not about me anymore." It stopped being about me. It's so that younger people can come into the space and do well, and not have to put up with the things that I've had to put up with, because I've been there and they'll see me fight back. That not only do I change the kind of bullies in the workplace, they know that, you know, people will fight back, and people have seen me fighting back that people will fight back. So it wasn't easy. I set myself on fire to keep people warm until it was just no longer feasible.

Kassia Binkowski
What has the impact of your sacrifice, your willingness to stand in that fire alongside presumably that of many other women, you know, as that number has moved from 3% to 42%, there must have been other women subjected to similar discrimination, similar criticism, constant, you know, undermining - but what has the impact of that body of women been on the country? You know, we've had conversations, several, in last season about the pure presence of women at the table changes things because they make decisions differently, they value things differently. Their experience of the world and the lens that they look through is different. And that changes things. What has been your experience of that? What have you seen happen? Has kind of, you know, the fire that you stood in, the burns that you experienced - was that worth? Has the needle moved in any meaningful way?

Phumzile Van Damme
I hope it has. Now, I can't definitively say, you know, things have changed because of me, but I've noticed, in just the way people are more comfortable with claiming their space and the way that, you know, the progress that I would never have seen before, I've seen happen. And then I only left in May 2021, so it's been difficult to kind of, at least from my contribution, it's been difficult to tell how much it has changed. But I know that people are treated better. And things are kinder for people because I fought. And that was the point because I said, "Look, stop being about me. I just want them to know that they can't treat people this way, because people will always fight back and will fight back." And I think they've realized that, you know, it's not worth it. And while not everyone's like me, they know that they have the potential to be like me, they have the potential to be a person who doesn't mind turning over dustbins and setting them on fire. Metaphorically.

Kassia Binkowski
And writing with lipstick on the wall.

Phumzile Van Damme
Exactly. Turning over the dust and making people uncomfortable.

Kassia Binkowski
What has been the landscape of gender policy at large? Is that starting to shift, do you see the presence of women in the lawmaking body actually starting to change things for the better?

Phumzile Van Damme
Oh, definitely. There's a lot of women, women in leadership positions, and I've never felt kind, for me there was more microaggression. So I never felt like my voice didn't matter because of a woman. And I think women have a seat at the table and can speak up and they are listened to. I mean, I was listened to, because once people got over, you know, the, how I speak and how I carry myself, they valued me because once I got past that they could listen to what I was saying, and my words, and I think a lot of women are well respected, and in politics. I think it's more microaggressions, I think you're right, it's less kind of like, "you're woman, your opinion, doesn't matter, we won't listen to you." It's just you have to fight a little bit more, to work twice as hard to be taken seriously. And that's in particular for young women, young black women. You know, to be young and black is like a double whammy you know, twice the hurdles you need to overcome.

Kassia Binkowski
A big reason why I wanted to have this conversation was to talk about the power and influence of women's voices, which we're already tiptoeing around if you will. Your voice is clearly incredibly loud, incredibly powerful. You were appointed national spokesperson for your party at one point. What influence did that afford you? What what did that platform allow you to do?

Phumzile Van Damme
So that platform allowed me to overcome a lot of my fears, because a lot of it was spokesperson, I needed to speak, and I think it was a time of growth. Obviously, I didn't think I was suitable for the position, you know, I was surprised when I was asked to take on that position.

Kassia Binkowski
Why were you surprised? Why was the bold, rebellious girl surprised?

Phumzile Van Damme
I don't know, maybe it's just I didn't think I was that capable. But they obviously saw something in me that I didn't see in myself. But it was an opportunity to really overcome some fears. And I grew a lot from the position. I mean, I served, it's a very tough position, because you have to constantly be available, and because you're constantly available, constantly aware of what's happening in the news, aware of risks. And I was the longest serving at four years because people don't do it past two years, because of how grueling it is. But yeah, I think it was an opportunity to overcome a lot of my fears, and stand in my truth.

Kassia Binkowski
It's interesting to hear you talk about your struggle with self confidence, you know.You described yourself as an introvert earlier, you know, in direct kind of opposition to some of these bold, rebellious personality traits that you've talked about. The fact that it just takes you a long time, then to recharge. You're willing to do that, you'll you'll lean into that, but then you need the time in the space. And now I hear you talk about self confidence, and despite the fact that you were elected to such prestigious positions or appointed to such prestigious positions and serving your country, you know, as a member of parliament, and yet you still felt inadequate, you know, you still struggled to feel your own sense of worth and to feel capable at doing this job. And you're not alone in that, right. I think we've had conversations with women all over the world, who are at the peak of their careers, and still wrestle with this sense of inadequacy and-

Phumzile Van Damme
Imposter syndrome.

Kassia Binkowski
Imposter syndrome! Yeah, it's real.

Phumzile Van Damme
Yeah. And I have anxiety, so I'm a very anxious person. I have constant, I mean, I've got chronic anxiety. And I guess that's where a bit of the added huge inner critic...

Kassia Binkowski
How do you quiet it?

Phumzile Van Damme
I'm learning. I don't know how to, I don't always know how to, I go to therapy. It's hard to silence and can be debilitating. But also, I guess, this is probably a weird thing to say, but my anxiety has actually helped me do well in my job. Because it means I over prepare, I prepare a lot. And I think, "Okay, this could go wrong. How do I prepare for this eventuality?" So it's helped in that way. But also, it has drained me of a lot of energy. So it's helped me grow, but that inner critic, I don't know, if I silence it, I only silence it by being prepared. But also, I think it lights a fire in my belly to say, "I'm going to do well, I'm going to make sure I do well," and I don't think I will ever go away. It's part of who I am and finding a way to live in comfort with the inner critic and to be able to have a conversation of kindness with yourself and your inner critic to say, "no, actually, I can do this, you need to shut up and keep quiet. I do know the subject matter. I can go and speak about it." And I think at every interview I struggled. Even today I was like, "What am I going to say? Am I going to be interesting? Do I need to prepare? No, don't prepare, just go be yourself." But I think that's something a lot of people struggle with. But I'm happy that discussing issues of mental health has become more mainstream, if I must use a word, and I think talking about it helps. Because people will see you and think, "Oh my god, that person is so well put together. They know what they're doing" and like, "Well, man, I have anxiety, I struggle with my anxiety." I think imposter syndrome chokes me at times, and so I'm grateful for that one generational development if I could say it that way of being far more open about mental health and because I think it helps a lot of people to know that "I'm not alone." And yeah, "this person I think they have their life together." Not many people know what they're doing, man! People don't know what they're doing, a lot of people are struggling and we're all just out here trying to do our best.

Kassia Binkowski
There's a connection here, right? I hear you talk about you having to silence, your own anxiety, and you having to tell that to shut up, you know that you're better than that, and you're showing up anyway. And I look at that inward inner battle that you have struggled with, that you're telling us about and kind of opening up about right now. And I think, "good God, like you had to fight that every day to do the work that you were doing?" The last thing you needed was a system around you also telling you to be quiet, to shut up, to silence that voice and that influence. And yet, that was kind of the common theme of your political career was battling a system around you trying to make you quieter, and smaller, and a little less effective at what you were doing.

Phumzile Van Damme
That's what it was. And the way I responded was just to fight back, I thought.

Kassia Binkowski
I want to talk about one of those fights, because there was a moment in your career where you moved from being a figure of national recognition and influence to really starting to get some global recognition. What can you tell us about the moment when you decided to hold the British PR firm responsible for spreading racist propaganda? Give our audience a summary of that campaign and that fight, and then I want to talk about all of the ripple effect.

Phumzile Van Damme
Yeah, so it was Bell Pottinger. It was a big UK based PR firm that did work for the Pentagon, contract in the billions. They did Margaret Thatcher's PR. So what they did was, they were hired by friends of former President Jacob Zuma, and his era of presidency was filled with corruption. So they were hired by this family to come and kind of clean up the image. And they ran a campaign in South Africa that had the effect of pitting South African's different racial groups against each other. So they sought, for example, to blame white people for South Africa's lack of economic progress. And, you know, it's a bit more nuanced than that, you know, there's institutionalized racism, but there's also years of corruption that have resulted in people not being able to move out of poverty. And so what happened was that there was a leak of documents and Bob Pottinger's, his contract with the Gupta family that were called was made public. And the response from South Africans was those rare moments, when people put their racial differences aside, and said, "Hell no, you will not do this in our backyard, you will not come in as a UK based PR firm, and kind of try and, you know, use our racial differences and our racial fears and our racial insecurities, you will not use those to pit us against each other." And so there was quite a lot of public response to that. So much so that Bell Pottinger just shut down the social media accounts. So yeah, and then I had a researcher - my researcher and I - looked at ways to try and see if there was a way to hold Pottinger accountable. So then we saw that they belonged to a PR trade body in the UK and if you were a kind of PR firm, you belong to this body and you needed to abide by the rules. And then we saw that they violated the rules. So we submitted a complaint and a lot of the work between then and the actual kind of case when the metal was heard was a lot of actual PR to get the story out there, to get it out to an international audience. And I remember a journalist talking to me and saying, " Well, isn't what Bell Pottinger did just, well, PR?" And it's like, no, it's not, you know. It has to be ethical and how you do your PR has to be ethical. So we've helped kind of start a conversation internationally about ethics, about ethics in the PR industry, about being held accountable for disinformation, because Bell Pottinger used a lot of disinformation in the PR campaign.

Kassia Binkowski
Let's talk about about that, I mean, we had a conversation with Kristina Wilfore and Lucina Di Meco last year on this very topic. Both amazing women who I know you know well. Obviously the conversation was really about gendered disinformation. I would love for you to remind our audience what that was and then talk about the role of that in this Bell Pottinger experience.

Phumzile Van Damme
Yeah, so there was a lot of gendered disinformation. So gendered disinformation is disinformation, particularly against women which uses sexist tropes and online violence against women where, you know, if, for example, Kamala Harris, they would put out, if I could give an example to explain it, they'll say, you know, "she is a b word." And here they'll put up photos of her, you know, manipulate photos of her in a short skirt, and like, you know, "this is a slut." So it's that kind of disinformation. And part of the Bell Pottinger campaign was a lot of disinformation, because South Africa has some really- the top journalists in South Africa are women. And so they would kind of manipulate images of them, sexualize them, spread lies, you know, "this one's sleeping with that one." So there was a big element of that.

Kassia Binkowski
Have you ever been a victim of gendered disinformation?

Phumzile Van Damme
I have a lot. There was a political party that kind of joined the election in 2019. And their campaign was "Phumzile Van Damme is arrogant. She's violent, and she's arrogant, and just all of this." And the way I reacted to it was, I fought. I think that's the story of my political career.

Kassia Binkowski
I was gonna say, I think there's a theme here.

Phumzile Van Damme
Yeah. And my response was, "Oh, really? Okay." You know, it was bad, there were botched campaigns. It was at a time when I just, "what do you mean, why am I suddenly a target, me? Why am I at the tip of everyone's tongues? What am I doing? Why am I such a fear?" Because I understood it came from a fear. It's like, "I don't understand it." And I think that also helped me understand my profile. And my, you know, because I was like, "What do you mean me? What am I going to do? What am I going to do? I don't have that much influence." But it helped me understand that, "oh, maybe I do then, and maybe I do have a profile, maybe I can say things, and maybe I have do have a little bit more protection, and I can say these things. And I can say things that people don't want to say, and I'll say them because clearly, I have a profile that I didn't know that I had."

Kassia Binkowski
I love that it helped you see your power. I love that an organized resourced campaign to silence you did the exact opposite.

Phumzile Van Damme
It did the exact opposite, because I was like, "Oh, thank you. This is what you've done." I think my reaction to it has kind of normalized it in the sense that I was like, "okay, so if this happens to you must just fight back, if they tell you to shut up, to speak louder," but it shouldn't be like that because not everyone's like me. And it shouldn't be a barrier. I often wonder how many women are shut down in the social media space? You know, there's been research done about gendered disinformation, how it actually silences women, they don't, women, politicians in particular, they don't post as much. They give their accounts over to staff and they do silence themselves. And it shouldn't be that way. Yeah, and that's, I remember I was at a workshop and women were talking about how that's kind of a barrier to involvement and I was like, "ah well, just go ahead and just say whatever you want," but it shouldn't be that way. It shouldn't be a constant struggle, a constant fight, it shouldn't be that difficult to share your voice. Yeah. And I think a lot of women actually leave social media, when it's actually an important platform, to build your profile, to get what you have to say out there, to set yourself out as an individual and not just a square politician, to actually have people know you as a person. And social media is really important for that. And I think a lot of women are shut out of that space, because of gendered disinformation and online violence against women. And I think that's a difficult concept for men to understand: violence is not only physical, it's psychological, and if you consistently bombarded with manipulated photos of yourself, you're called the B word, it silences you.

Kassia Binkowski
In 2019, you were reelected. You were elected as National Assembly, you were the Shadow Minister of Communications and digital technologies committee. In 2020, you became a member of the International Grand Committee of Disinformation. I hear you say that it did not silence you. Your resume reflects the same, right?! You clearly just stepped into more and more opportunity and influence despite the campaigns, despite the effort put to keep you in a box. What is the landscape and influence of gendered disinformation look like in South Africa right now? I feel like we hear more and more about it in the past five years. I don't know that it's necessarily new, although you tell me, but we're definitely talking about it more. What does it look like now and what is still missing from these conversations?

Phumzile Van Damme
So it is alive and well, and the primary targets are journalists and women opinion makers. And they are routinely subjected to coordinated attacks. So I tried to broach the subject of gendered disinformation and online violence against women. And the response was quite vitriolic, and it didn't make sense. And there's different factions on Twitter, so there's more the right-wing conservative male, who just refused to understand this idea of online violence against women. And I think they reacted so strongly to it, because it's a primary tool in their arsenal to say, you know, to attack people, to attack women, because they understood that was a tool to silence women. And with the opinion makers, for example, it would be women that speak up against racism, and there will often be manipulated images. You know, there was this one woman who had a photo of her manipulated, with a big dildo was photoshopped next to her. A lot of work is needed in South Africa to start that conversation and I think it isn't one that has been spoken about enough. And for an issue that is alive and well, for an issue that is a tool in many an arsenal, because you know, some people will stand up and speak up, and other women will not. So I think sparking a conversation will make them uncomfortable, because knowing that people are aware that you're doing this, and speaking out against it, but also the social media platforms themselves.

Kassia Binkowski
So I was gonna say, I want to talk about the social media platforms, because you became known as the person who pounces on injustice. You earned the nickname "Tiger Paws" and I want to hear - great nickname, by the way, I like it!

Phumzile Van Damme
Yeah!

Kassia Binkowski
I want to hear more about your effort to request that Facebook be summoned to the Parliament of South Africa. Tell us about how that unfolded.

Phumzile Van Damme
The Facebook story. So it was the head of the South African election after January 6 in the US, and South Africa was headed towards an election. And obviously, social media and how they react, or to not react to, hate speech, to disinformation, was a challenge. So I thought, you know, the best way to to kind of deal with this was to get the social media platforms on board to have a conversation to say, "these are concerns as parliament, how are you going to deal with those?" And so I think because of the international reputation I had, when I, you know, Parliament's agreed with me that we need to summon them, them knowing that I was involved in this made Facebook agree, for example, and that's something that they've resisted around the world. And it was without a lot of resistance that they agreed to come to Parliament, Google agreed. So we're going to have this conversation. And then at the 11th hour Facebook pulled out because I think maybe they headquarters was like, "no, you know, we don't know what these people are going to say," and they wanted to postpone. And obviously I was very upset about this, I wrote a statement saying you know, displeasure, you know, backhand at the Global South, and my political party tried to get me to not say anything about that.

Kassia Binkowski
Why? What do you think the motivation was?

Phumzile Van Damme
So I don't know for a fact what happened. But I know that Facebook invests a lot of money, for example, in the US on lobbying. And so when I initially raised the subject of Facebook, coming to Parliament, a lobbyist called me and said, you know, we're lobbyists representing Facebook, and they wanted to talk to me. And I said, "No, I don't speak to lobbyists, particularly on such an important issue. If anyone from Facebook would like to speak to me that they can pick up the phone and talk to me." And I was like, "You're not going to spin me, I'm just not going to do that." So what the reasoning was, then from my political party, just say, "I can't go off the Facebook." They said, "Oh, no, Facebook's really great at removing disinformation." But that's how ridiculous it was. And I tried to explain "No, they're not that good." So what I figured happened was that a lobbyist found an ear that was perhaps not very familiar with the facts. Because they said that, you know, if I got off the Facebook, Facebook will make the campaigning for the election very difficult. And after years of nonsense, and my job being made incredibly difficult and doing it anyway, that, for me was a step too far. Because I was knowing what Facebook has done, or turned a blind eye to, I couldn't go out there and be okay with what Facebook does, and be part of a school of thought that saw Facebook as good at removing disinformation, of placing Facebook - of having the power to say, if you do not do this, you know, we will not allow you to use our platform to campaign. Look, I knew that was not true, but clearly, they reached a year where they could say this, and they had a willing ear. And, and I resigned because I can't- I'm not going to do that. So that kind of was when I decided, I'm not going to do this anymore. I can't be forced into a position where I defend Facebook, knowing what they've done, knowing what happened in Myanmar, knowing that they have a massive disinformation problem, knowing that they actually can stop you from using the platform to campaign, but knowing the conversation that must have taken place for someone to be convinced of this position. And knowing that Facebook, quite likely not only my political party had the power to do that, but knowing that this is probably what they do around the world. I couldn't be placed in a position where I could be associated with that.

Kassia Binkowski
After so many years of activism and influence, was that a hard decision to come to?

Phumzile Van Damme
It was an incredibly hard decision to make. I loved my job, I was good at it. I had to fight off so many attacks. But because I believed in what I did, it was worth it. And because it stopped being about me it was worth it. But there comes a point in life where you need to recognize your own value. And at that time, where I had grown after, you know, I had grown to understand that clearly I have a bitch profile, and that's why they can have coordinated bot attacks of knowing what had helped do with Bell Pottinger of being on the grand committee of disinformation, on being the first legislator to successfully summon Facebook to Parliament in Africa, knowing what I can actually do. It made the decision a little bit easier to make, that I knew that even if I leave the space, I can still continue with my work. Knowing that I still had a platform to hold big tech accountable, to speak about disinformation and not having to be in this toxic space made it a little bit easier. But it was a very, very, very hard decision to make, particularly knowing that I could have stayed and fought. But the cause was bigger than that particular space, I could fight internationally and be free to say what I want to say without being confined to a very small space.

Kassia Binkowski
I have known you for like an hour. What is it 90 minutes? I don't know. It's great. I love every minute I don't want it to end.

Phumzile Van Damme
Me too, it's so much fun!

Kassia Binkowski
And hearing you talk about that resignation simultaneously makes me so sad for what your government lost when you stepped out of that leadership role, so sad that they're missing out now on that influence. And yet so proud of you for being able to say enough is enough.

Phumzile Van Damme
You're gonna make me cry.

Kassia Binkowski
"I'm not gonna stand in the fire forever. You can't keep burning me." And for having this sense of self worth enough to, to step aside, to prioritize that for a minute.

Phumzile Van Damme
Yeah, I'm healed from it. But it wasn't easy.

Kassia Binkowski
What are the consequences to society when we silence women's voices in these ways?

Phumzile Van Damme
You lose people that are- you lose talents, skills, education, you lose so much and for what? Whatever you lusted for, so you can feel, as a mediocre man, that oh, you know, here's this person who- what sort of quote, "you shouldn't have to dim your lights to make somebody else shine". Where, what? So you silence, this woman who did so much good for your own ego? Is your ego that much more important than the effectiveness of a particular woman? And it really pains me that this is the story of so many women: of women in the public sector of women in the private sector, that our lives are a perpetual war that we need to fight. But what always comforts me is knowing that there were women who came before me who had their own struggles that they fought for me, to make it easier for me, and I need to fight on for women that will come behind me to make it easier for them.

Sabrina Merage Naim
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