MADIBA’S LEGACY OP-ED President Nelson Mandela dances with some of his young guests at a party held in honour of his 79th birthday in Cape Town in 1997. More than 1,000 children from all over South Africa, most of them terminally ill, attended the occasion. (Photo: Anna Zieminski / AFP) One of the areas of Mandela’s life that needs attention is that of gender — his relationship with women and men while growing up in very patriarchal societies as a young boy and later as a man.