Bernedette Muthien
Founder and Executive Director, Engender, South Africa

Bernedette Muthien is originally from a large working class black family of mixed origins in South Africa. Her absolute commitment to human rights and social and economic justice is rooted in both her personal background, as well as her anti-apartheid activism. She honed her skills in community organizing with grassroots movements during the eighties. Due to intense student activism her teenage years were marked by expulsions from schools and university, detentions and imprisonment.

Determined to graduate from university, she funded her education through full-time employment, bursaries and state-funded loans for students from poor families. At the end of 1993 she graduated from the University of Cape Town with an honors degree in Political Studies. She then pursued graduate research at Stanford University as the first Fulbright-Amy Biehl Scholar.

Muthien’s professional life has echoed the belief that the personal is political, and the global local, and hence her work has consistently centered on the issues of gender, human rights, and peace.

At the end of 2003 Muthien founded a non-profit organization, Engender, to formalize the work she had engaged in since leaving the African Gender Institute at the end of 2001. Engender provides research and capacity building for communities of people on genders and sexualities, human rights, justice, and peace.

Her community activism is integrally related to her work with international organizations, and her research necessarily reflects the values of equity, social change and justice. Bernedette has published both creative writing and academic work in South Africa and abroad. She has written for diverse audiences and is committed to accessible research and writing.