Letters | A reluctant response to Fred Khumalo’s open letter to Khanyi Mbau

VOICES

Mvelase Peppetta writes a response column challenging Fred Khumalo's open letter to Khanyi Mbau that he deems to be sexist and inappropriate.

I’d never have thought that Khanyi Mbau leaving a man in Dubai would be followed by a swift and tiresome series of events leading to two men, Fred Khumalo and myself, arguing feminism.

Yet here we are. Reading Khumalo’s open letter published in last week’s paper, I was surprised to discover that a piece practically printed with the seminal fluids he’d spilt over Mbau was apparently also a celebration of her feminism.

READ: Close-Up | Dubai or not Dubai: An open letter to Khanyi Mbau

We begin with Khumalo being invited to appear on a show Mbau hosted, about which he writes he was “entranced by your [Mbau’s] thick lips”. Khumalo was so beguiled by Mbau, he writes:

Having taken his readers on a journey through his sexed up memories of that interview, it’s not surprising when Khumalo admits he’s forgotten what the purpose of his letter is. But it turns out that this letter is intended to defend Mbau’s unapologetic Dexit, if you will. Khumalo writes that Mbau’s choice “to leave your boyfriend at that hotel in Dubai under false pretences” shows she does not “theorise about feminism, you live it. You are it.”

Khumalo fails to see the conflict in writing a defence of Mbau’s feminism while in that very same column also fetishising her. In a series of tweets directed at Khumalo about his column, I said as much.

What I didn’t mention – which in writing this column I now also am guilty of – is that, as a man, it is not his place to cast any judgement on Mbau’s feminist credentials.

So when Khumalo challenged me to “write a fully fledged response to my article, taking me up on material issues” my concern was: Who cares about two men debating Khanyi Mbau’s feminism?

It was then left to me to decide if I had any right to respond to Khumalo. To help me answer that, I canvassed the opinions of women I know and respect.

Of course, not all will agree with them, but they – to a woman – felt that, while a woman penning this response to Khumalo would certainly have been better, I should take Fred up on his offer.

Writer Danya Buchanan added, “Women are tired of explaining to men why they are terrible, and similarly tired of holding men accountable for their terrible actions,” while pointing to the “intrinsic man-ness of that piece” as a reason I, in fact, should respond.

In a separate conversation, political analyst Dr Sithembile Mbete pointed me to an equally odious 2014 column, also penned by Khumalo, and published in another newspaper, which perhaps tells us more about his inability to respect women. In it he proposed that then president Jacob Zuma ought to take on Lindiwe Mazibuko, who at the time was the DA parliamentary leader, as a young new wife.

In an extended joke based on the age difference between the two, a very pleased with himself Khumalo quipped that this would make Mazibuko Zuma’s “umfazi wokugugela [literally, ‘a wife to retire on’]”. This wife, according to Khumalo, was “a young, vivacious siren” who gave old wives “respite from their household chores – but in the nocturnal gymnastics department, too”.

In asking me to pen this piece, Khumalo said that, in his career as a columnist, he had “made my mark as a person who enjoys stirring things up. I like putting a humorous zing to serious topics”, before adding “then again, humour is subjective. One man’s joke might be another’s piece of invective.”

In the first sentence of this column I described this debate as “tiresome”.

It’s tiresome because Khumalo’s fantasies about Mbau turning into a column published in a national newspaper follows a long tradition of men believing that what ought to be their private masturbatory inspirations are actually prescient commentary.

While 20 years ago your “humour” may have been something, Fred, it’s way past time you updated it or put your pen to rest. 

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