Dudu became a manager when Zamambo was promoted. However, before she could take up the management job, she requested that the portfolio be broadened beyond women and children.
As such, she was made a manager for community empowerment and her team included men.
Initially, she was not too keen to become a manager because she prefers getting things done quickly when a decision has been made and not to rely on other people for implementation.
In essence, she is a control freak and is poor at delegating, a weakness she readily admits.
While she maintains that she is not a feminist per se, but trying to temper men’s dominance at the station was something that partly motivated her to accept the job. However, there was something else that finally convinced her to go for it, a desire to prove a colleague wrong.
“It was one male colleague’s arrogance that pushed me. He said if I was given the position, everyone would resign. When I probed further, he couldn’t back his assertion. I decided I would not let women down because if we allowed a man to run the department, it would undo the progress made by Zamambo and Camilla.
"I took the management position but I was frustrated because I am a hands-on person and administrative work is not my cup of tea. Also, it was in the early years of my marriage. I didn’t like the endless meetings, which prevented me from doing certain things with my husband the way I was used to.”
The only time she had a major fallout with Mbatha was when he kept pushing her to quit presenting because she was now a manager.
“I had to go and get a copy of my job description, which said I can be both a manager and an on-air presenter because I was the first-line manager. It was difficult. I ended up going on air on Thursdays only, but the pressure to say I must stop broadcasting never stopped because it is the nature of our work. There is always a belief that someone else can do a better job.”
As the community empowerment programmes manager, it was a team of seven people. Reporting to her were Zanele Mbokazi-Nkambule, Vicky Masuku, the late DT Ngwenya, Bongi Gumbi, Mandla Malakoana and the late Nonhlanhla Mkhize.
That self-doubting or self-absorbed Dudu, depending on how you look at it, rears her ugly head again when she recounts her time as a manager.
“I thought it was a calculated decision to give me all these personalities and it was a plan to set me up for failure. One of the things I struggle with is delegating. Even today, if I have given you a deadline and you don’t meet it, I take over and do the job myself.
“We would plan events for things such as Women’s Day. Others were slow by nature, but others would plot to sabotage my plans. Where things jammed, I would take over and there would be complaints that I left people behind. I was really frustrated and added to that I was working with insensitive men. I couldn’t be there for my family the way I preferred.”
She was a manager for only two years before requesting to go back to full-time presenting, probably the defining moment of her on-air radio career because she has never looked back since. Her star has continued to rise and rise.
Fighting women’s battles at Ukhozi FM would go beyond just accepting a management role. She cites examples of subtle and overt bullying and sexism, which she said even compelled her to really up the ante and challenge it daily. Patriarchy forced her to develop a thick skin quickly.
“Angifikanga nginje kuKhozi (My personality wasn’t like this when I joined the station). I think people got frustrated by my approach and I was not being a typical wife and mother that they had boxed me in. They couldn’t understand that I was available to travel when required to do so, others were even offended by my dress code and the fact that I wear pants.
“I remember that, for example, if we were going to have a meeting, they always waited and assumed that a female must take minutes. I questioned that, asking who said it was a female’s job to take down minutes.
“I remember in another staff meeting I had to ask Bhodloza (Nzimande, the late uKhozi FM station manager) and I said ‘Indaba ine-anda noma iphenti yini Mphephethwa?’ (Is the matter about underpants and panties?), because what he was saying didn’t make sense.”
The underpants and panties metaphor was testament to the entrenched patriarchal disposition of the radio station’s management. She is convinced the gender battle continues because every now and again questions are raised about when she will retire in order to make way for fresh blood.
“There are male presenters who have been on air for 30 years, but you never hear questions about when they will retire. I have not even reached 30 years on air, but I get asked that all the time because I am a female.”
The interviews for this book were done before Dudu clocked 30 years on air.
In some of the battles, her husband Khoza had to personally intervene when it became unbearable for his wife as others bordered on sexual harassment. With one late colleague there had to be a meeting that involved his wife to address rumours of an extra-marital affair.
“I had to clear my name and it made sense for him, his wife, Bab’ Khoza and I to sit down together because my name was being tarnished. We had to get to the bottom of the rumours,” she says.
The Khozas are unconventional in their approach and to have Khoza personally and directly take up HR battles on his wife’s behalf is one such example.
There was a time when Khoza had to question certain contractual obligations on behalf of his wife, something unheard of at a company, to have an outsider directly meddle in employment affairs of an organisation he didn’t work for.
But the Khozas have their own rules and that is what they keep to instead of what the world expects and says they should do.
In another instance while Lady D was presenting a night slot, there was a caller who harassed her with a regular call. All it took to put a stop to it was one day to have Khoza answer the call when it came through.
An extra-marital affair rumour peddled by a female this time around stopped after Khoza addressed it by simply saying: “I don’t recall employing anyone to be a security guard to my wife.”
• Longevity: The Story of Dudu “Lady D” Khoza as told to Slindile Khanyile was launched on August 4 and retails for R320 a copy
BOOK EXTRACT | Longevity: the remarkable story of Dudu Khoza, one of SA’s leading broadcasters
Patriarchy forced Lady D to develop a thick skin quickly
Image: Supplied
Dudu became a manager when Zamambo was promoted. However, before she could take up the management job, she requested that the portfolio be broadened beyond women and children.
As such, she was made a manager for community empowerment and her team included men.
Initially, she was not too keen to become a manager because she prefers getting things done quickly when a decision has been made and not to rely on other people for implementation.
In essence, she is a control freak and is poor at delegating, a weakness she readily admits.
While she maintains that she is not a feminist per se, but trying to temper men’s dominance at the station was something that partly motivated her to accept the job. However, there was something else that finally convinced her to go for it, a desire to prove a colleague wrong.
“It was one male colleague’s arrogance that pushed me. He said if I was given the position, everyone would resign. When I probed further, he couldn’t back his assertion. I decided I would not let women down because if we allowed a man to run the department, it would undo the progress made by Zamambo and Camilla.
"I took the management position but I was frustrated because I am a hands-on person and administrative work is not my cup of tea. Also, it was in the early years of my marriage. I didn’t like the endless meetings, which prevented me from doing certain things with my husband the way I was used to.”
The only time she had a major fallout with Mbatha was when he kept pushing her to quit presenting because she was now a manager.
“I had to go and get a copy of my job description, which said I can be both a manager and an on-air presenter because I was the first-line manager. It was difficult. I ended up going on air on Thursdays only, but the pressure to say I must stop broadcasting never stopped because it is the nature of our work. There is always a belief that someone else can do a better job.”
As the community empowerment programmes manager, it was a team of seven people. Reporting to her were Zanele Mbokazi-Nkambule, Vicky Masuku, the late DT Ngwenya, Bongi Gumbi, Mandla Malakoana and the late Nonhlanhla Mkhize.
That self-doubting or self-absorbed Dudu, depending on how you look at it, rears her ugly head again when she recounts her time as a manager.
“I thought it was a calculated decision to give me all these personalities and it was a plan to set me up for failure. One of the things I struggle with is delegating. Even today, if I have given you a deadline and you don’t meet it, I take over and do the job myself.
“We would plan events for things such as Women’s Day. Others were slow by nature, but others would plot to sabotage my plans. Where things jammed, I would take over and there would be complaints that I left people behind. I was really frustrated and added to that I was working with insensitive men. I couldn’t be there for my family the way I preferred.”
She was a manager for only two years before requesting to go back to full-time presenting, probably the defining moment of her on-air radio career because she has never looked back since. Her star has continued to rise and rise.
Fighting women’s battles at Ukhozi FM would go beyond just accepting a management role. She cites examples of subtle and overt bullying and sexism, which she said even compelled her to really up the ante and challenge it daily. Patriarchy forced her to develop a thick skin quickly.
“Angifikanga nginje kuKhozi (My personality wasn’t like this when I joined the station). I think people got frustrated by my approach and I was not being a typical wife and mother that they had boxed me in. They couldn’t understand that I was available to travel when required to do so, others were even offended by my dress code and the fact that I wear pants.
“I remember that, for example, if we were going to have a meeting, they always waited and assumed that a female must take minutes. I questioned that, asking who said it was a female’s job to take down minutes.
“I remember in another staff meeting I had to ask Bhodloza (Nzimande, the late uKhozi FM station manager) and I said ‘Indaba ine-anda noma iphenti yini Mphephethwa?’ (Is the matter about underpants and panties?), because what he was saying didn’t make sense.”
The underpants and panties metaphor was testament to the entrenched patriarchal disposition of the radio station’s management. She is convinced the gender battle continues because every now and again questions are raised about when she will retire in order to make way for fresh blood.
“There are male presenters who have been on air for 30 years, but you never hear questions about when they will retire. I have not even reached 30 years on air, but I get asked that all the time because I am a female.”
The interviews for this book were done before Dudu clocked 30 years on air.
In some of the battles, her husband Khoza had to personally intervene when it became unbearable for his wife as others bordered on sexual harassment. With one late colleague there had to be a meeting that involved his wife to address rumours of an extra-marital affair.
“I had to clear my name and it made sense for him, his wife, Bab’ Khoza and I to sit down together because my name was being tarnished. We had to get to the bottom of the rumours,” she says.
The Khozas are unconventional in their approach and to have Khoza personally and directly take up HR battles on his wife’s behalf is one such example.
There was a time when Khoza had to question certain contractual obligations on behalf of his wife, something unheard of at a company, to have an outsider directly meddle in employment affairs of an organisation he didn’t work for.
But the Khozas have their own rules and that is what they keep to instead of what the world expects and says they should do.
In another instance while Lady D was presenting a night slot, there was a caller who harassed her with a regular call. All it took to put a stop to it was one day to have Khoza answer the call when it came through.
An extra-marital affair rumour peddled by a female this time around stopped after Khoza addressed it by simply saying: “I don’t recall employing anyone to be a security guard to my wife.”
• Longevity: The Story of Dudu “Lady D” Khoza as told to Slindile Khanyile was launched on August 4 and retails for R320 a copy
BOOK EXTRACT | State capture was only the first step
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