The argument that women aren’t as talented or as driven as men is so absurd, it comes off as trolling – deliberately intended to antagonise.

It’s as stupid and specious as saying that the reason there aren’t more black animators in South Africa are because black people aren’t as talented or motivated as white people. Ridiculous, racist and blatantly untrue. (please read that sentence again carefully before making any wild accusations)

I’m the head writer on the biggest animated show to come out of South Africa (and a woman – 2/3rds of our script team are women, in fact, and we write awesome female characters and, hey, you know, awesome male characters too. No problem).

While studios in the US may be looking for more women animators, here in South Africa, we’re desperate for more black animators. There’s a shortage of them. Not because black animators aren’t talented or driven enough, but because historically they’ve been denied the opportunity and the education. We’ve only had democracy for 13 years, and that’s not anywhere near long enough to redress the horrifying inequalities of our apartheid past.

Compare this to the situation of women animators in America. Boingboing.net has a wonderful post showcasing a 1938 Disney rejection letter to a would-be female animator at http://www.boingboing.net/2007/06/26/disney_rejection_let.html and a disturbing addendum from a young woman who had a similar experience with a Disney recruiter more recently.

This is not to say that women in America have to deal with anywhere near the same level of entrenched repression that black South Africans have endured in the last 50 years - but rather that it takes time and effort to change a culture of inequality.

Our company is not just sitting back and whining about it – we’re in discussions with the world’s leading 2D animation software company, Toonboom (whose CEO happens to be a woman), about starting affordable training institutes for anyone with the passion and talent, whatever their gender or race.

Lack of women in the industry, however, is a different issue to lack of women characters on screen, which is what we’re really discussing here.

Nicole Shield nailed it, about 20 letters back, when she pointed out the lack of secondary female characters. More of the toys in Toy Story could just as easily have been female (not Barbies for a boy child, but the aliens, for example could have been voiced by women), ditto girl monsters in Monsters Inc, ditto girl rats in Ratatouille. Like Nicole, I would be more okay with the dominance of male leads if it was balanced by lots of rich secondary female roles.

Didn’t Geena Davis start an NGO to promote more female characters in entertainment – SeeJane?

The South African-designed snap-on Pronto condoms are so cool that they make me want to run out and have protected sex.

Also fabulous are their online ads spoofing South Africa's worst HIV/AIDS prevention and health offenders, our minister of health who believes in garlic and African potatoes over ARVs and Jacob Zuma, former deputy president, who "allegedly" raped a HIV positive activist and then had a shower in the hopes of reducing his risk, despite being head of the National Aids Council and the government's Moral Regeneration campaign. Cunning satire and easy condom application are a bonus in my book.

(and no, I don't work for them)

In other (horrific) condom news, in August, the South African government recalled 4.5 million condoms (latest figures suggest it may go as high as 20 million) after a defective batch was allowed through by corrupt officials who were bribed by the manufacturer.

It's a terrible blow to HIV/AIDS prevention, undoing decades of good work by pro-condom campaigns, but more than that it's put hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people at risk when they think they're taking all the right precautions.

It's not like the people involved both at SABS (the South African Bureua of Standards) and the offending manufacturer, Latex Surgical Condoms didn't know what this would mean, that a faulty condom is potentially a death sentence in a country where 10% of our population are HIV positive.

As far as I'm concerned, this is practically an act of genocide and should be treated as such in the courts.

I wrote an article on pole-dancing a while back which allowed me to try it out and it was super fun - like being a kid on a jungle gym again. There was a real sense of freedom and play, right until we got to the part where you're supposed to lick the pole provocatively. Ew.

But regardless of whether you're swinging around the thing like a kid or dry-humping it like a stripper, pole dancing has a very clearly defined sexual connotation in our culture.

It's completely inappropriate and messed up to teach little girls pole-dancing. What's next? Flash-your-coochie-for-the-paparazzi lessons?

I've always loved Tom Robbins' term, peach fish.

Unfortunately, we haven't in fact banned plastic bags. But we do charge for them. It's something like 40c a bag (that's ZAR not US$) and you should have seen the outrage and fury and the rabid letters to the newspaper at the time it was introduced. Now, no-one even blinks.