The recent rape allegations against Zwelinzima Vavi, General Secretaty of COSATU has led to a range of arguments, which obscure the character of the sexual encounter, even if it is not characterised as rape.  Public figures proposing and having a sexual encounter in an organisation’s offices, where one is the head of the organisation, is not the same as their conventional ‘private lives.’  Whether or not Vavi cheated on his wife is a private matter, but the overall environment within which the encounter occurred is the business of all those who believe in gender equality

In yesterday’s  Business Day (31 July 2013), Steven Friedman says some of us ‘are worried that we don’t talk about public figures’ private lives.’

He also says some insist that Zwelinzima Vavi’s private behaviour ‘belongs in the public domain.’  He relates this to concern for fidelity to one’s partner.  My belief is that he is correct in saying that fidelity to a partner is a private matter between the partners. But this case raises wider issues.

My understanding is that Vavi’s accuser has withdrawn charges of rape in a process that was organised by COSATU, the organisation that Vavi heads. We do not know what led her to withdraw nor do we know how the panel of investigation was constituted.  I do not allege that Vavi raped this woman, though this withdrawal does not necessarily close the case, because we have no idea how matters unfolded, the character of the procedures followed.  We do know that the grievance proceedings were held in an organisation that Vavi heads and it would have been a lot more credible had the proceedings been conducted under independent auspices.

But the question that needs to preoccupy us is patriarchal power in the workplace, which may exist in a range of ways, blatant, obvious or subtle. If a person who makes overtures to another can determine that person’s  destiny in the organisation, that is, whether that person stays in that  job or advances,  is not simply  a question of  ‘private life.’  It does not end with the Vavi family resolving their unhappiness over infidelity.

It is the question of power in the work place that is precisely why certain Wits academics are under investigation.  It is not an allegation of rape in all cases or many but one of exercising undue influence or the inherent power that office confers, over people who have a reason to fear that they may face negative consequences if they do not agree to a sexual ‘offer’. In the case of students, they may fear failure or that their marks will suffer.

Friedman is not unaware of this, for he writes: ’Where public figures use their power to force people into a sexual relationship, this is an abuse and again we need to know.  People in positions of authority may not need to force themselves sexually onto those over whom they have power-if they control whether the other person keeps their job.  We should widen our view of sexual violence to include cases in which power is used to force people into sex they do not desire; these abuses of power are also of public concern.’

It may well be that Vavi did not see himself exercising force.  But is it not in the nature of a power relationship of this type that there is a good reason for the person who is the employee to consider the relationship very different from ‘private life’?  The employer suggesting sex can respond in a range of negative ways some time in the future should he be turned down, as with the university professor.  There is a power that is unspoken, but known to both parties, that makes the very notion of consent ambiguous.

The rest of Friedman’s article returns to the same question of an undue concern for private lives.  That then leaves unanswered the power relationship in a sexual encounter of the type that is alleged to have taken place in the office of the organisation which Vavi heads. Why admit that such a relationship compromises consent and then undermine that by returning to concern for private lives of public figures.? Vavi admitted to a sexual encounter in the building over which he presides and has a major say in the future of all its employees.  That is the issue

I am aware that this may well have political implications for Vavi and his tenure as General Secretary, but this case can nevertheless not be treated  as simply one variant of a range of sexual encounters in our conventional private lives.  I have reason to believe that there are many leaders of government, political figures and union leaders who are having ‘affairs’ of this type.  Whether they are married is a separate question from the unequal character of the relationships that are prevalent, that the one party may in many cases be in a position to determine whether or not the person stays in a job or advances.  There may not be physical violence, but there is inequality, which should not be blurred.