Crystal Dicks and the struggle for gender justice in South African higher education

This online event brings together both personal and political history.

The event has two main things:

1) commemorate the life and activism of Crystal Dicks, with a primary focus on her tenure as the Director of the Gender Equity Office (GEO) at Wits University, and

2) connect Crystal’s work to the larger and still ongoing struggle for gender justice in South African higher education. 

Crystal Dicks was at the forefront of political struggles in Southern Africa for decades, beginning as a youth activist and community organizer in Cape Town, then taking on the challenge of worker education and organizing informal workers, and more recently organising in solidarity with activists struggling for a free and democratic Eswatini. Throughout her life, Crystal was especially invested in issues of gender justice, and it was in this context that she took on the Directorship of GEO in 2017. 

This is where the personal and political come together. In this event, we also hope to draw from Crystal’s example and experiences to both reflect upon and contribute to larger struggle for gender justice in South African higher education today. Late last year Wits university students mobilised yet again. And it isn’t just Wits. Universities across South Africa face the same challenges. South Africans more broadly continue to experience exceptional levels of sexual violence, harassment and bullying, and many continue to follow in Crystal’s footsteps by mobilising to take action to advance gender justice and confront impunity.  

We welcome everyone who has been influenced and inspired by Crystal and who remains invested in the cause of gender justice in South African higher education to join us.

We are hosted under the FemIDEAS and the FemDialogue Conference 2026.

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