LAST week's other parliamentary fiasco came on Wednesday, with the debate on National Women's Day, which was given this rather clumsy title by whoever organises these things: "Celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Women's Charter and 20 Years of Freedom: Together Moving a Non-Racial, Non-Sexist South Africa Forward."

Now, "fiasco" may seem strong, suggestive of the sort of chaos that erupted with the Economic Freedom Fighters' disruption of proceedings in the National Assembly on Thursday. 

But no, this was a mess because the debate was largely ignored. I cannot begin to understand why no-one thought it important. Actually, I can, but more of that later.

True, great stretches of it were exceptionally dull, with speeches that plumbed new depths in tedium. Minister in the Presidency Susan Shabangu's was a case in point, a monotonous jumble of statistics: we have so many women doing this and that, in the top positions here and there, but not so many doing whatever and the other. 

Interest didn't wane so much as ossify.

Of course, Shabangu did point out she herself had come some way topwards in her own career. As a woman. With responsibilities. Or as she put it: 

"Following the 2014 general election, the fifth since 1994 the ruling party in government took the bold step to place radical economic transformation as a priority in the fifth administration and established the Minister in the Presidency Responsible for Women. It was not by mistake when President Jacob Zuma located the Department of Women in the Presidency,  that in itself signifies the fact that it is established as a game changer with a strategic imperative of transforming the socio-economic status of women and accelerating gender equality."

Just a pity then that Zuma wasn't there to see this game changer in action - or any of the other speakers.

One longed for a madwoman to take the podium and deliver the sort of corrosive, potty-mouthed rant about Women's Day that enraged Cape Town editor Helen Moffett dumped on social media two years ago. 

"Here's an idea," Moffett began. "Take your pathetic, meaningless, mind-blowingly expensive and stomach-churningly patronising Women's Day and cancel it. Cancel the entire idea of ‘women's month'. Tell me, what is the F***ING point?"

And here's how she ended: "So grow the f*** up. Cancel the froth and bubbles. What you have reduced the 1956 Women's March to is a travesty. That was an occasion of extraordinary dignity and power, and we'd like to remember and honour it without having to use sickbags, please. Lilian Ngoyi and Albertina Sisulu and the thousands of brave women who took part that day are squirming in their graves at your appalling, ongoing, almost CASUAL abandonment of this country's women, especially the poorest ones. The public spectacle of hypocrisy that is Women's Day is just rubbing salt into their wounds."

The middle bits are very good, too. But you'll have to Google it to read further. It should be noted, though, that Moffett is not ordinarily that sweary, and the authors she works with regard her as one of the best in the game. It's just that the threat of closure that Rape Crisis faced at the time had greatly angered her and a great many other women.

Which brings us to the speech by Denise Robinson, the DA's shadow minister of Women in the Presidency. In it, she recounted horrifying examples of recent attacks on women. 

Last weekend, she said, an 83-year-old died after she was beaten and raped near her home outside Makhado in Limpopo. Days before that, a lesbian woman was raped and murdered in Ventersdorp in the North West. "Again, the horror of this story is made worse by the fact that this incident forms part of a plethora of similar instances to which the country is now worryingly desensitised."

Robinson then requested that "all the members stand for a moment in respect of all the tragic deaths that have occurred, and in sympathy with the victims of crime and abuse."

Whereupon the EFF's Julius Malema rose on a point of order. "I want to check," he said, "whether under the rules of the House a member can instruct you to stand up." Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu had some idea it was not permitted. The IFP leader, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, had had a similar request some years back and it was ruled out of order, Sisulu said.

In the end, though, DA members rose. MPs from other parties remain seated and jeered. An 83-year-old gogo? Raped and murdered? And whether or not you pay respect comes to down to party affiliation?

It's a hard business, politics.

This article first appeared in the Weekend Argus.

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