Women's Organizations and Democracy in South Africa: Contesting Authority

373 Pages·2006·1.502 MB·English

by  Shireen Hassim

Women’s Organizations and
Democracy in South Africa
wo m e n i n a f r i c a
a n d t h e d i a s p o r a
Series Editors
stanlie james
aili mari tripp
Women’s Organizations
and Democracy in
South Africa
Contesting Authority
Shireen Hassim
The University of Wisconsin Press
The University ofWisconsin Press
1930 Monroe Street
Madison, Wisconsin 53711
www.wisc.edu/wisconsinpress/
3 Henrietta Street
London WC2E 8LU, England
Copyright © 2006
The Board ofRegents ofthe University ofWisconsin System
All rights reserved
1 3 5 4 2
Printed in the United States ofAmerica
Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hassim, Shireen.
Women’s organizations and democracy in South Africa :
contesting authority / Shireen Hassim.
p. cm.—(Women in Africa and the diaspora)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-299-21380-3 (cloth: alk. paper)
ISBN 0-299-21384-6 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Women in politics—South Africa.
2. Women and democracy—South Africa.
3. Feminism—South Africa.
4. Women—South Africa—Societies and clubs.
5. South Africa—Politics and government—20th century.
I. Title. II. Series.
HQ1236.5.S6H37 2005
306.2´082´0968—dc22 2005011887
For
samir aisha,
and
with love

Contents
Preface ix
Abbreviations xiii
Introduction: Autonomy and Engagement in
the South African Women’s Movement 3
1. Contesting Ideologies: Feminism and Nationalism 20
2. The Emergence of Women as a Political Constituency:
1979–90 47
3. The ANC in Exile: Challenging the Role of Women
in National Liberation 85
4. The Return of the ANC Women’s League:
Autonomy Abrogated 116
5. From Mothers of the Nation to Rights-Bearing Citizens:
Transition and Its Impact on the South African
Women’s Movement 129
vii
viii Contents
6. Political Parties, Quotas, and Representation in
the New Democracy 170
7. One Woman, One Desk, One Typist: Moving
into the Bureaucracy 210
8. Autonomy, Engagement, and Democratic Consolidation 246
Appendix A: The Women’s Charter for Effective Equality 269
Appendix B: Structure and Components ofthe National
Gender Machinery 279
Notes 281
Bibliography 319
Index 341
Preface
This book is based on archival research, secondary sources, interviews, and
participant-observation. It contributes to existing scholarship on both so-
cial movements and gender in South Africa by developing a narrative about
the trajectory of women’s politics within the national liberation movement
in the last two decades of the twentieth century. To do this I have brought
together scattered and somewhat parochial reports, articles, and testimo-
nies from the pages of alternative media such as Speak, Work in Progress,
andAgenda. IamindebtedtothereportingdonebytheSpeakcollective,
especially Shamim Meer and Karen Hurt, who were committed to letting
women speak their own words. Their work over many years has created an
invaluable archive that has preserved women’s voices, both individual and
organizational, for future scholars to use. Without this magazine’s short re-
ports on organizations and their activities, and its interviews with politi-
cally active women at the local level, researchers would have great difficulty
reconstructing the tenor of gender politics in the 1980s.
ix