The vitriolic attacks and threats directed at ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte are shameful and dangerous. They perpetuate oppressive gender relations in our society.

Apart from sexist attitudes, intimidation –  which borders on gender-based violence –  found refuge inside the movement.

How long should women endure such preposterous abuse? This barbarity of misogynistic proportion cannot go unchallenged. It pains many of us that toxic masculinity is still alive in a way that perpetrators brazenly act in an open manner to trample upon the human rights of women.

It’s even hard to believe that male chauvinism remains a weapon of some in the movement to exert pressure on women in order to bully them into submission. This is despite the ANC being regarded as the leader of society which needs the best out of everyone who lives in it.

All of this is indicative of the everyday struggles of women across the spectrum, wherein intransigent men hide behind social stereotypes of entitlement to impose their will and hold women to ransom.

And the conspiracy of silence characterises our own complicity in the perpetuation of patriarchal relations to engender complacency in society.

The ANC leadership is to be blamed for allowing foreign tendencies to be consolidated in the movement.

Morgan Phaahla, Vosloorus, Ekurhuleni