I don’t know about you but in this day and age when I hear comments like these from a prominent businesswoman it kind of irks me. Surely we have moved past a point where this is advice that needs to be given by someone with a platform to make a real difference?

The woman in question is SAA Chairperson Dudu Myeni, who spoke with News24 yesterday in Umhlanga. Here’s some of what she had to say:

“There is a notion out there that when you are a woman, for you to ascend to a position of power or climb the ladder, you must have opened your legs somewhere.

“Black women must dispel the notion that there must be a bedroom first before you succeed. Success must not be defined by the bedroom. It must be defined by your capabilities.

“What can you do and what can you offer the company? I won’t be able to sleep at night if our roles as women were based on a man first sleeping with you.”

That all comes across as rather patronising to me, but maybe I’m just blindly hoping that attitudes like these are few and far between.

She then addressed the rumours that she has a rather cosy relationship with Jacob Zuma:

“People go as far as saying that I have a relationship with the president.

“People are starting to be personal and it means that there is something that they don’t want to lose. I don’t intend making anyone lose anything; my intention is to do what the government wants me to do.”

A quick peruse through the old Google shows that the most heat Myeni has flacked stems from the controversy surrounding her qualifications for the position she holds. Here’s TimesLive in an article from November of last year:

[She] listed a bachelor’s degree in administration as one of her qualifications when she was appointed in 2009, she mysteriously removed the degree in last year’s annual report.

Responding through SAA spokesman Tlali Tlali, Myeni said she had listed the degree because she had been studying towards it…Tlali said there was nothing wrong with board members listing qualifications they had not yet obtained and then removing them.

Just to be clear I’m not insinuating a connection between her comments and her qualifications, just that she has come under close scrutiny following that news breaking last year.

Here’s hoping she can offer sage advice that helps young women following in her footsteps going forward.

[sources:news24&timeslive]