Is There a Need for Black Feminism in South Africa? an Exploration Into Systematic and Intersectional Exclusion

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How to cite this thesis Surname, Initial(s). (2012). Title of the thesis or dissertation (Doctoral Thesis / Master’s Dissertation). Johannesburg: University of Johannesburg. Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/102000/0002 (Accessed: 22 August 2017).

Is there a need for Black Feminism in South Africa? An exploration into systematic and intersectional exclusion.

Kelebogile Patience Salane

201027652

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree

Master of Arts in Philosophy (Coursework)

in the

Department of Philosophy

of the

Faculty of Humanities

at the

University of Johannesburg

supervised by

Prof. H. P. P. Lötter

10 December 2018 3

Acknowledgements

To Black women in South Africa and in the diaspora,

May we know Victory.

Abstract

Much of mid- to late 20th century (postmodern period) socio-historical narratives, particularly pertaining to the meaning of black womanhood in post-colonial societies have noted black women’s plight as that characterized by intersectional oppression. Black women cannot adequately pronounce on the experience of being ‘a black person’ without that conversation encompassing the experience of being a woman (including from a certain class grouping, sexuality etc.). This is because how they experience the world (how they participate and how world/others respond to them) is linked to the matrix of domination (racism, sexism, and classism) that informs their lived experiences.

South African black women are the highest demographic group in the country, but they are also the poorest. The minor dissertation serves as an exploration into whether Bblack feminism as a guiding principle to ensure radical inclusion, is significant to begin the cultural shift in South Africa’s racist, patriarchal, and classist society. Although black women in South Africa have historically shunned Feminism as mostly serving the interests of white, Western, middle-class women; or black feminism as mostly serving the interests of Western black women – black feminism is used here as a notion able to hold the same meaning insofar as describing a movement that denounces anti-racism and anti-sexism is concerned.

Therefore, the idea is that if the values of a society are flexible to change– and if we believe that values can be taught – South Africa’s culture of anti-black sexism ought to be radically replaced with values that espouse black feminism. Furthermore, if the government of South Africa adopted a black feminist praxis as its “Founding Document for an Equal Society”, recognizing it as a politic whose radical singularity finds a healthy alternative to anti-black sexism; in addition to recognizing and thus promoting the notion of intersectionality as a healthy alternative to liberal heteronormative standards of human life, South Africa would realize its true potential of an antisexist and antiracist country.

Table of Contents

Page number

PREFACE …………………………………………………………………………………6

CHAPTER 1. GUIDING CONCEPTS AND INTRODUCTIONS TO THE ARGUMENT……………………………………………………………………………….8

1.1. Introduction…………………………………………………………………………..8 1.2. Black Feminism……………………………………………………………………..10 1.2.1. Intersectionality…………………………………………………………………….18

CHAPTER 2. BLACK FEMINISM VS. SOUTH AFRICAN POLITICS………………23

2.1. Black Feminism in South Africa? ……………………………………………….23

2.2. Role of South African women in resistance …………………………………..34

2.2.1. Winnie Madikizela-Mandela: Of the Casualties of White Supremacy and Patriarchy…………………………………………………………………………………..50

CHAPTER 3. CASE STUDIES ON RACIALIZED PATRIARCHY IN POSTCOLONIAL SOUTH AFRICA ……………………………………………………60

3.1. Anti-Black Sexism – Current Contexts………………………………………60 3.2. #FeesMustFall: A Case Study………………………………………………...73

CHAPTER 4. RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS – TOWARDS A FOUNDING DOCUMENT FOR A BLACK FEMINISM SOCIETY…………………..81

4.1. Core Issues………………………………………………………………………….81

REFERENCE LIST……………………………………………………………………….87

Preface

Statistics South Africa's (Stats SA) mid-year population estimate (as at July 2018) reported that of the 57.7 million people living in South Africa, black African women make up an estimated total of 41.4% (23 896 700); making them not only the highest

demographic group within Black South Africans in particular, but also the highest

across South Africans in general. Yet, Stats SA also revealed (as at February 2018)

that black South African women's unemployment rate sits at 34.2%, irrespective of

education level – the highest across all demographics1. Moreover, in 2017 the South

African Human Rights Commission found that approximately 17% of black women

aged 15 years and over do not have an education level over Grade 7, compared to

almost 12% of coloured women, 7% of Indian women and less than 2% of white

women.

The ‘black female question’ has occupied much of postmodern socio-historical

narratives, particularly pertaining to the meaning of black womanhood in post-colonial

societies. That is, the realization of black women’s lived experience being largely

informed by intersectional oppression – or the double jeopardy of being black and female. In South Africa, a ‘young’ democracy with arguably the most vibrant, race/gender-inclusive Constitution in the world, black women remain the systematically excluded majority. That they are the highest demographic group in the country, who are also the most affected by the remnants of the country’s legacy of institutionalized racial segregation, represents South Africa’s dire political vacuum.

Because of this, it necessitates an urgent need for socio-political reform. The idea is that, and as the minor dissertation largely demonstrates, if the values of a society are

1 Coloured women follow at 23.5%, and white women were the least affected at 6.7%.

flexible to change (for the better) – and if we believe that values can be taught – South

Africa’s culture of anti-black sexism ought to be radically replaced with values that

espouse black feminism.

Adopting black feminism as a guiding principle is not only necessary in reversing the

lived conditions of black women in the country. It is also necessary in dismantling the

culture of racialized sexism that South African black women confront in mainstream

media (i.e. portrayals), corporate South Africa and the labour market – to name a few.

From working as a domestic worker under apartheid South Africa to fund her

schooling, to singlehandedly raising two children in a one-bedroom shack, to

navigating the consistent terrain of apartheid and its unique effects on black women;

my mother – an educator – was my first painful introduction to anti-black sexism and

its adverse consequences for black women in South Africa. Black feminism is

therefore necessary not only for the black mothers who had experienced racial

exclusion throughout its many layers, but for South Africa’s overall quest for radical

equality across the board.

Chapter One: Guiding Concepts and Introductions to The Argument

1.1. Introduction

As with any philosophical study, primarily that relating to the subject, it is the imperative of the author to locate an intended argument within the necessary context so as to derive a comprehensive appreciation of the study. That is, that there is a need to interact with the historical nuances of the issue before delving into what the issue is – precisely if it means the history of the issue largely informs its current pulse. This particular issue, namely anti-black sexism as it intersects with the socio-economic and historic landscape of South African politics, has a varied context. What I mean here is that in trying to advocate for – or locate – black feminism in South Africa, it would firstly be necessary to study and analyze what black feminism is (in relation to its extension to traditional liberal feminism); how anti-black sexism is rooted in intersectional exclusion; the history that informs South African black women’s lived experience; and how the need for black feminism is precisely located in the socio-historic experiences that have largely shaped South Africa’s current context in terms of its relation to black women.

The need for black feminism in South Africa is proven in various facets of society through systematic racism and sexism that intersect to form a multifold character of oppression for the black women in its society. The argument is necessitated by the dearth in postmodern theoretical accounts of South African black women’s lived experiences. While the effects of institutionalized racism post-1994 have justifiably been theorized and discussed at great lengths by various social structures in South

Africa, rarely has the same consideration been given to the effects of anti-black sexism

(sexism and its specific effects on black women in South Africa) as it manifests in

present day South Africa. This has further assisted the continued systematic exclusion

of black women, in addition to rendering their ‘struggle’ (i.e. against both racism and

sexism – and their various manifestations) insignificant. The minor dissertation then,

seeks to provide an argument for the advancement of black women in South Africa by

offering black feminism (and as an extension, intersectionality) as a radical alternative

to racism, classism, sexism, and all other forms of oppression that intersect to inform

the lived experiences of black women in South Africa. Throughout the paper I employ

the term ‘radical’ to emphasize the distinguishable standard at which black people’s

(and by extension, black women’s) lives ought to be advanced. Particularly if those

lives have been informed by racism, sexism, and the various ‘isms’ linked with

negative prejudgments on black people (women).

I will begin with an account of black feminism, particularly its history as it emanated as

a response to the Black Liberation and liberal Feminist movements in America. I will

then provide an account of intersectionality as it emanates from the black feminist

theory; which is that it claims a multifold character that primarily advocates for the

dismantling of various oppressions that work simultaneously.

I will further begin the discussion on the possibility of a black feminist politic within the

peculiar context of South Africa. I will argue here that although black feminism originated in a context different from that of South Africa, that there is a possibility to

argue for its presence insofar as South African emancipatory politics are concerned.

South African black women do, and have always had an idea of what equality is and

what it would mean for the liberation of all black people – but particularly black women

– from the various forms of segregation. I will attempt to demonstrate the

aforementioned point with a discussion on the role that South African black women

played in the struggle against apartheid. This discussion will also highlight the

tendency to exclude women in the history books of South Africa.

The subsequent part of the minor dissertation will deal with current contexts. I will

provide a summation on all the laws that were created to govern and thus protect black

women’s lives as well as include a discussion on their corresponding shortcomings.

These include, but are not limited to, the Constitutional Court, the Equality Court, the

Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA), special Family Courts

and Labour courts. Moreover, I also provide a discussion on the politics of Winnie

Mandela as well as the FeesMustFall movement as case studies to demonstrate the

similarities in the plight of women in protest under apartheid and under the new

democratic order. Over and above the similarities, I argue that black women have been

systematically devalued even when they commanded powerful political spaces.

Additionally, I provide case studies to highlight the need to formulate a new social order which advocates for the eradication of intersectional oppression and a move towards a more radically inclusive society. In the final section I will provide brief policy gaps as well as begin mapping out what a South Africa who has adopted black feminism or a black feminist praxis as a ruling politic and overall culture is able to drive forward in terms of the values that the country and its society ought to ascribe to.

1.2. Black Feminism

Historically, the vast majority of African citizens were sent to the American colonies

during the slave trade under forceful racial oppression. The largest recorded slave trade was the Transatlantic Slave Trade which saw the forced relocation of some 15 million Africans from their continent (or respective African countries) to the Western

Hemisphere over the course of 400 years. The University of Pennsylvania’s Sylvie

Pascale Dewey (2012a) wrote specifically of the bondage of female slaves that,

“The virtual enslavement of women stemmed from their "reproductive potential

of becoming a commodity to be exchanged. […] Women, often dishonored by

rape, were assimilated into tribal societies. They were thus the archetypal

slaves, as slavery became associated with supposedly inferior, foreign women.

This, in turn, heaped further degradation onto all women available for

subjugation: slave girls filled brothels and harems.” (2012a: 132)

Furthermore, Patricia Hill Collins (2000a: 4) said of oppression that it is “any unjust situation where, systematically and over a long period of time, one group denies another group access to the resources of society.” The intersection of gender, race and class oppression which was a key characteristic of the slave system shaped the

American black feminist political context. Moreover, “taken together, [this] supposedly seamless web of economy, polity, and ideology function[ed] as a highly effective system of social control designed to keep African-American women in an assigned, subordinate place.” (2000a: 4)

Born from a resistance to traditional and liberal definitions in the politics of women’s emancipation from the dominant systems of sexism and patriarchy, black feminism – a concept that warranted the inclusion of the diversity of identities that existed in the various women’s movements – first found its linguistic expression in African American women’s narratives of socio-economic-political freedom for black women. Alison

Stone (2007) notes that “because racial categories shape our experience, the experience of being a woman is always related to and affected by the lived experience of being a particular ‘race’.” This is true for all races but white women hardly perceive

how race impacts their lives, “[t]his is partly because their classification as ‘white’ tends

to benefit rather than disadvantage [them].” (2007: 16) Black feminism in America

arose as a response to the Black Liberation Movement as well as the Women’s

Movement – movements that occupied the Western political terrain from the 1960s

well into the turn of the century. Black women, however, struggled to find expression in both movements, and as a result found it difficult to form solidarity within the groups since the latter group also acted as their oppressors. According to Joy James (1999a), the politics of black feminism display a “radical singularity”, that is, that in its revolutionary trajectory one finds alternatives to both the ‘politics’ of antiracism and liberal feminism.

A further problem which arose in the omission of black women from traditional antiracist and liberal feminist movements is that it made it difficult to understand the intricate relations of inequality that constituted society. I wish to argue as a matter of principle that will guide the minor dissertation that all inequality is related and thus the omission of some or other parts of inequality presents an incomplete picture of the

larger problem. That is, that excluding black women’s experiences from these

movements gave the outsider only a partial understanding of the aim of the movement.

This is because liberal feminism has largely been accused of representing mostly the

interests of white, middle-class and educated women while disregarding black and

other women of colour who mostly find themselves in poorer economic classes and

who are additionally racially oppressed. Similarly, the exclusion of black women’s

experiences from Black liberation movements enabled the latter’s racial discrimination

in addition to their being discriminated against due to their gender. bell hooks (1984) denounced the traditional definition of feminism as “apolitical” since “it evokes a very

romantic notion of personal freedom which is more acceptable than a definition that

emphasizes radical political action.” (1984: 24) The latter political action being the

confrontation of additional oppressions as they exist beyond the traditional, and

therefore anti-inclusive, spectrum of anti-sexist political action.

By extension, Esmeralda Thornhill (1985a) said of white feminist authors that

The force that allows [them] to make no reference to racial identity in their books

about Women that are in actuality about White Women, is the same force that

would compel any author writing exclusively about Black Women to refer

explicitly to their identity. That force is racism. For, in racially imperialistic

societies like ours, it is the dominant group that automatically reserves for itself

the luxury of dismissing racial identity. It is the dominant group that has the

power to make it seem that their own experience is wholly representative.

(1985a: 154)

These reasons and many others are the causes of the term ‘women’ being taken as synonymous with white women, whereas black women and other women of color are seen as ‘others’, “as nonpersons, as dehumanized beings – or sometimes not seen at all.” (1985a: 155) Additionally, “there persists a dogged unwillingness to acknowledge and distinguish between varying degrees of discrimination, despite the self-evident reality that not all women are equally oppressed.” (1985a: 155) This is saturated in the assumption that women’s issues need not address the issue of race (or by extension, what it would mean to host a range of oppressions in a single identity). Quoting the black political writer Manning Marable, Thornhill notes that “with the unique experience of being caught in the interstices between race and sex comes also a unique vulnerability.” (1985a: 157) Racism and sexism (and the various oppressions that may

14 emanate from them) in this case are two fixed aspects of human identity and therefore the move to end them ought to be organically interwoven. hooks correctly describes feminism as a “struggle to end sexist oppression”, but adds that it is also (ought to be) “necessarily a struggle to eradicate the ideology of domination that permeates Western culture on various levels[.]” (1984: 24) This is feminism defined in political terms. More elaborately, “when feminism is defined in such a way that it calls attention to the diversity of women's social and political reality, it centralizes the experiences of all women, especially the women whose social conditions have been least written about, studied, or changed by political movements.”

(1984: 25)

Moreover, although efforts were made to grasp the political significance of the Other sex in black emancipatory narratives, these coincided – almost strategically – with efforts to curtail the extent to which black women could fully realize their significance; an ironic departure from the very tenets of black feminism. Jennifer Thorington

Springer (2015a: 170) said of this that “in order to deem black women worthy subjects and to challenge the stereotypical images of them, black women were expected to perform within the narrative of traditional womanhood, which would have called for women to be passive, nurturing, asexual, submissive, and lacking sexual agency.”

In addition, “codes of conduct were established in black communities to erase the stereotypes of the over sexed black woman by following Victorian ideals of femininity.”

(2015a: 170) This had resulted in most women committing themselves to family life in a bid to shift the focus away from issues of sexuality and agency as they relate to them. But the move towards accepting their subjugated realities further contributed to class divisions within the black communities since a woman’s social and economic

15 clout could determine whether or not she would be taken as deserving of full recognition and thus respect.

Springer continues that

Black women [are] encouraged to deny any aspect of their sexuality in order to

demonstrate that they were respectable. Protecting black women from

subjugation and objectification led to the policing of their sexuality and perhaps

the “recrimination” of those who dared to seek sexual agency, because their

actions were interpreted as lewd and deviant. (2015a: 170) hooks further asserts that the racial-patriarchal society has led to Black women

“bear[ing] the brunt of society’s need to degrade and devalue women.” (hooks, 1982:

110) That is, “while white women have been placed on a symbolic pedestal, black women are seen as fallen women.” (hooks 1982: 110) Additionally, “[i]n contemporary pornography [Black] women are objectified through being portrayed as pieces of meat, as sexual animals awaiting conquest.” (Hill Collins, 2000a: 146) What follows then, is the realization that the reality of existing in the realm of ‘blackness’ ensures that black bodies are devalued in line with the aesthetic theory. The rejection of the black female body is consequently based on features that are alien to the colonial-patriarchal (or,

‘aesthetically dominant’) world and its aesthetic reality. The black female body thus suffers systematic othering due to the racial discrimination inherent in the anti-black, dominant world as well as the sexism endured by the subject regarding the sexualisation of her body. The latter is the Beauvoirian (1949) assertion that the female body exists precisely for the function of the male subject.

Furthermore, Nicole Rousseau (2013b) uses material feminist Alexandra Kollontai’s exploration of black female labour to drive forward the point of capitalist exploitation

as an additive to black women’s oppression. This is the notion that asserts that

“working class women experience a unique oppression as producers and reproducers of the capitalist system that oppresses them in ways men are not. As such […] [black] women would never achieve full enfranchisement within the confines of capitalist structure.” (2013b: 193) And although white women have also historically been exploited by capitalism, the author notes that “[b]lack women occupy a unique location as a raced/gendered working class.” (2013b: 193) hooks (1982) continues on this point and notes that

Black women have maintained significant ties to the forces of production in the

[…] capitalist economy since the earliest years of forced productive;

reproductive; and biological labour […]. Throughout Black women's histories as

both producers within the labour force (first slave, then wage) and biological

reproducers of these labour forces, she has also maintained a role as

reproductive labourer, whether as slave, domestic, or even within contemporary

racialized/feminized careers, i.e., social work, teaching, nursing etc. (2013b:

193)

Keeping within the explorations of black female labour, Rousseau pronounced the latter’s status as “instruments of production through processes of racialization and racialized patriarchy” (2013b: 194) i.e. anti-black sexism; and adds that “this theoretical lens facilitates [the] examination of Black women's identities as oppressed people of color, in a gendered/raced society.” (2013b: 194) As constant labourers in the racialized patriarchal capitalist society, black women’s oppression has persisted well into the 21st century. Oppression within this paradigm is further aggravated by the fact of black women being both productive and reproductive (through historic

relegation) producers of this racist-patriarchal labour pool. Rousseau has termed the

latter reality as “superexploitation by the racialized patriarchy”. (2013b: 195)

Responding to Marx’s (in the 1867 Capital) assertion that the assigning of processes

of production to women as well as young children (both male and female) improved

family relations in addition to improving relations between the sexes, Angela Davis (in

James and Sharpley-Whiting: 2000b) notes of the oppression imposed on women by

capitalism that “while work outside the home has furnished some women with

important advantages, most have had to accept its reaffirming and amplifying effect

on their oppression.” (2000b: 170) She borrows these words from Clara Colon to

further her point: “The woman, pivot of home and family life, can only set one foot into

the world of opportunity as an industrial worker. The other foot is still stuck to the household doorstep. If she tries to combine home and work, she is restricted to

performing half-way in each.” (2000b: 170)

In addition, describing the American political environment which warranted various

social movements to organize in a bid to dismantle the repressive system at the time,

as well as the socio-psychological condition that resulted in it, bell hooks (1982) noted

that

Contemporary black women could not join together to fight for women’s rights

because we did not see “womanhood” as an important aspect of our identity.

Racist, sexist ideology had conditioned us to devalue our femaleness and to

regard race as the only relevant label of identification. In order words, we were

asked to deny a part of ourselves – and we did. […] We were afraid to

acknowledge that sexism could be just as oppressive as racism. […] We were

a generation of black women who had been taught to submit, to accept sexual

inferiority, and to be silent.

Therefore if we understand the feminist movement to be the recognition and thus promotion of women’s rights in so far as they are allowed to participate equally in the socio-political society; black feminism is taken to be the response to the movement which advocates for the recognition of racial, class and ethnic diversities that exist inside the movement – with their corresponding oppressions. Additionally, it is a response to the antiracist movement for the equal recognition of the diverse sexes

(including those that form outside of heteronormative standards of gender). Black feminism then claims a multifold character in that it primarily advocates for the dismantling of various oppressions that work simultaneously against black women; these oppressions intersect to form a complex and multifaceted type of oppression –

one that denounces the ascension of one form of oppression over the other.

1.2.1. Intersectionality

Hill Collins recognizes the above phenomenon through the notion of intersectionality;

a term coined by American feminist and civil rights advocate Kimberlé Williams

Crenshaw. This refers to “particular forms of intersecting oppressions, for example,

intersections of race and gender, or of sexuality and nation.” Moreover, “Intersectional

paradigms remind us that oppression cannot be reduced to one fundamental type, and

that oppressions work together in producing injustice.” (2000a: 18) Intersecting

oppressions further “shed new light on how domination is organized; the term matrix

of domination describes [the] overall social organization within which intersecting

oppressions originate, develop, and are contained.” (2000a: 227)

Intersectionality according to Jennifer Nash (2008) is the idea that “subjectivity is constituted by mutually reinforcing vectors of race, gender, class, and sexuality, [and] has emerged as the primary theoretical tool designed to combat feminist hierarchy, hegemony, and exclusivity.” (2008: 2) The term has been widely lauded as the most closer-to-the-truth approach to analyzing experiences of oppression and identity, it also “underscores the 'multidimensionality' of marginalized subjects’ lived experiences.” (2008: 2)

The overall principles of intersectionality are that first, it undermines the twofold nature of gender and race in order to understand identity in its complex nature. Nash says of the subversion of the two-foldedness of identity that it “is particularly important to enable robust analyses of cultural sites (or spectacles) that implicate both race and gender, like the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, the O.J. Simpson trial, or the

Kobe Bryant rape case.” (2008: 2) Intersectionality secondly intends to assist in providing the necessary responses to critiques of identity politics since “the real problem of identity politics is that it elides intra-group difference” (2008: 2), intersectionality then acts to illuminate differences within groups of ‘women’ and ‘black people’ to “demonstrate the racial variation(s) within gender and the gendered variation(s) within race.” (2008:2) Finally, and perhaps most notably, intersectionality lays bare the exclusion of black female realities in both feminist and anti-racist narratives.

Authors Sumi Cho, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw and Leslie McCall (2013c) provide a concise picture of intersectionality “as a heuristic term to focus attention on the vexed dynamics of difference and the solidarities of sameness in the context of antidiscrimination and social movement politics.” (2013c: 788) And more diversely, it is a “concern with the ways in which the social categories of gender, ability, age, race,

20 sexuality, nationality and class symbiotically reinforce one another to produce marginalized subjects.” (Lola Okolosie, 2014a: 108) Intersectionality then becomes a primary tool in which black feminists are able to articulate and thus understand the reality of their lived experience: how it came about and why it persists.

All paradigms of domination are therefore constituted by various types of intersecting oppressions, and “regardless of how any given matrix is actually organized either across time or from society to society, the concept of a ‘matrix of domination’ encapsulates the universality of intersecting oppressions as organized through diverse local realities.” (Hill Collins, 2000a: 228) The politics of black womanhood then highlights the misconception of assuming that racism affects all black people in the same manner, when sexism and class in fact act as additives and intersect in a way that locates black women in a particular matrix of domination. In addition, sexuality and nationality, for instance, are able to add oppressions such as homophobia and xenophobia into the ‘the mix’.

Speaking to the reality of the objectification of the black female body, Hill Collins

(2000a: 97) states that:

The controlling images of Black women are not simply grafted onto existing

social institutions but are also so pervasive that even though the images

themselves change in the popular imagination, Black women’s portrayal as the

Other persists. Particular meanings, stereotypes, and myths can change, but

the overall ideology of domination itself seems to be an enduring feature in

intersecting oppressions… [Black] women encounter this ideology through a

range of unquestioned daily experiences.

This is to say that the systematic perception of black women is not merely embedded in past or current societal rationale; but is rather prevalent to the point of escaping the ever changing atmosphere of certain stereotypes and myths. The controlling images of black women have a fixed nature: they have existed from pre-nineteenth century slavery periods up to and until this time, thus they are likely to form part of existing social institutions for subsequent years to come. Indeed “prevailing standards of beauty [have always claimed] that no matter how intelligent, educated, or “beautiful” a

Black woman may be, those Black women whose features and skin colour are most

African [will still be systematically stereotyped.]” (Collins, 2000a: 98)

As a consequence, using an intersectional paradigm assists in explaining both this matrix of domination as well as the individual and collective ways within which the oppression(s) take place; these ultimately help to “reconceptualise social relations of domination and resistance.” (2000a: 229) The notion of intersectionality, similar to

‘patriarchy’, the latter which is “a term for naming gender inequality or gendered power relationships between women and men” (Patil, 2013: 843), has not gone without its share of criticism in even the feminist circles since it was first coined.

On patriarchy, notable African scholar Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí (1997a) has understood its dominant usage in contemporary postcolonial studies as a “Western construct”. By using the Yoruba society as a geopolitical starting point, she argues that the contemporary feminist postcolonial studies “[assume] the a priori existence of women and of gender asymmetry”, in addition, “that this notion of patriarchy actually […] neglects the role of European colonization in inculcating [the] Western style patriarchies into its colonies.” (Patil paraphrasing Oyewumi, 2013: 850)

Similarly then, the concept of intersectionality is unable to escape its geopolitical conception insofar as it was a response to the plight of black women in the United

States who challenged the dominant forces of racism, sexism and other varying oppressions at the time. Patil phrases this as the theory being “shaped by colonial modernity.” (2013: 853) More specifically, the argument is that the theory of intersectionality “continues to be on the putative West, domestic and local[;] leaving unexamined cross-border dynamics, processes beyond the local level of analysis that nevertheless are integral to the unfolding of local processes[.] [In this way,] intersectionality falls short of its potential.” (2013: 854)

By way of countering this argument, I will argue that the term in its definition precisely transcends the geographic-rigid-domestic-local make-up presented in the abovementioned critique. That is, that although the term and its definition(s) could be faulted as having a ‘Western gaze’, that the gaze in itself would be incorrect since the term in its use speaks precisely to the various (and thus, and perhaps most importantly, unlimited) forms of oppression that are all related insofar as they ratify oppression to a said group. When we ask of a liberation movement to be intersectional, what is asked is that it recognizes the multiplicity of identities that constitute the movement. Beyond just a recognition, the requirement is for all those various identities to be taken together in order to inform the mandate of the movement. The notion of intersectionality therefore (and if we take language to be universal – able to have the same meaning even in changing contexts), regardless of where it was penned, should advocate precisely for all types of identity related oppressions.

This will therefore suffice as the cornerstone of the argument in advancing a black feminist politic for the South Africa socio-historical political context: that if we understand intersectionality to be understood as I have presented above, and

23 therefore able to transcend its geopolitical conception, then it should necessarily follow that black feminism (atleast insofar as we are merely borrowing the phrase because it is an English phrase while renouncing its origin) with its own geopolitical origin – and precisely if we understand language to have the same meaning despite changing contexts – is able to hold the same as far as describing a movement that denounces anti-racism and anti-sexism (and all the oppressions that emanate from this intersection) is concerned.

Chapter Two: Black Feminism vs. South African politics

2.1. Black Feminism in South Africa?

In this Chapter I wish to demonstrate, through past and current accounts of South

African black women’s activism in the fight against apartheid, how black women have

always had an understanding of equality with men (or the lack thereof) even within

‘black liberation’ spaces. This is important because ‘feminism’ in South Africa is mostly

taken to be a ‘Western’ concept that seeks to identify sexism in the West. Not only

this, but feminism (Western) is accused of having attempted to universalize its

principles through a sort of erasure of diverse experiences in other parts of the world

which are otherwise not captured by the concept. The same is said of black feminism:

the lineage of the phrase was a response to the need to include the unique

experiences of black or African-American women in the West when addressing

sexism.

But although African women had rejected feminism, particularly in their vocabulary,

they did not reject it in their activism2. The late Winnie Mandela (as well as other

corresponding female activists), as I will elaborate further, had previously refused to

be ‘labelled’ as a feminist; however a quick glance at Winnie’s activism tells us of one of the most formidable black feminists of our generation: she embodied black feminism more than she advocated for it. And so for South African women, black feminism became the personified struggle by women against sexism and racism. In the proceeding paragraphs where I discuss the role that women played in resistance against apartheid, I do so with the aim of not only demonstrating that black women in

South Africa have championed black feminism through their activism, or that their roles

2 Although this activism may be unique to South Africa.

25 in the struggle have been historically undervalued - but to acknowledge that intersectional oppression in South Africa has persisted well into the dawn of democracy; and that its undoing should wholly concede to black feminism as a radical alternative to South Africa’s socio-political culture as it stands today.

Black women in South Africa have historically resisted identifying as “feminists” (or even as “black feminists”) precisely because of its historical conception and the practices that followed. One of the earliest documented manifestations of this was in the various women’s dialogues that were organized in the beginning of what would be the introduction of a new democratic order. The first of these came in the form of the

Women and Gender conference in Durban (Natal University) in 1991, which was soon followed by the Lawyers for Human Rights conference in Cape Town. In 1992 the opportunity arose again for South African women to attend the first African Women’s

Diaspora in Nigeria. Here South African feminists could for the first time (under the banner of “feminists”), as a group, meet their African counterparts to the North.

These early post-apartheid meetings were, however, riddled with conflict and misunderstandings; for instance “the major areas of dispute that surfaced in Durban were the paucity of black women delegates, the perceived objectification of black women by white academics, and the fact that the conference did nothing to affirm black women.” (Coetzee & Roux, 2003: 402) Another area of conflict was the claim held by the black women delegates that “sisterhood was a myth because it did not recognize the differences and the conflicts between the different women.” (2003: 402) These points of conflict fed into the Lawyers for Human Rights conference, where “the white delegates tried to explain their position and to apologize for the injustices against black women” (2003: 402), an occasion which, however well intended, failed to resolve the existing disputes.

The African Women’s Diaspora conference also had its share of conflict. The South

African women saw the meeting as a way to finally engage with other women in the

African continent since they had previously been kept apart by the racist policies of the government of the time through rigorous monitoring of borders. However,

When they arrived they encountered not only fellow Africans but also African

American women who had come to Africa to look for their roots and to unite

with their African sisters—even though for most of them this was a first visit to

Africa. They in turn did not expect to come to Africa to meet white South

Africans who, to the chagrin of the Americans, seemed to think that they had a

greater claim than they did to African heritage. (Coetzee & Roux, 2003: 403)

The white South African women, who were accused of racism and colonialism by the

Americans, had written and presented papers on the lived experience of black women in South Africa in a bid to show unity in the latter’s activism. What followed was intense criticism wherein the American black women accused the white South African women of attempting to represent black women’s experiences as well as assuming they could talk on behalf of black women. (2003: 403) After arguments (especially directed to the overall presence of white women) had ensued well into the early hours of the morning,

African women who had been living in exile in Europe successfully lobbied for white women to participate under the banner of anti-racism.

Eventually, after the […] intervention of the mainly black Namibians and the

Nigerian hosts, it was agreed that the white women could stay but on two

conditions. First, they had to sign a joint statement in which they acknowledged

(1) their privileged status, (2) that there had to be transformation to ‘facilitate

the visibility of women who had previously been discriminated against’, (3) that

strategies had to be found to address the gap between academics and activists,

and (4) that there have indeed been a significant number of white scholars who

have made a contribution to the transformation of society. In addition, they had

to agree to let their black colleagues read their papers for them. (2003: 403)

Another notable issue that arose at the Natal University conference was “how far other bodies of feminist theory are relevant to South African historians.” That is, indeed how far we can use various feminist theories (with their socio-historical etymologies) to theorize on South African women’s seemingly distinct lived experiences.

(Hetherington, 1993: 244) The events from all the conferences, particularly the one that took place in Nigeria, gave light to the fact that the participants were divided in their collective oppression. Elizabeth Spelman (1998) identified this as “the paradox lying at the very heart of feminism and which threatens to tear it apart: ‘Any attempt to talk about all women in terms of something [they] have in common’, she says,

‘undermines attempts to talk about the differences among [them] and vice versa’.”

(2003: 409)

Iris Young’s (1990a) notable conception of the “Five Faces of Oppression” also problematized the generalization of “oppression” by asserting that oppressed groups are not always oppressed in the same way; “in the most general sense, all oppressed people suffer some inhibition of their ability to develop and exercise their capabilities and express their needs, thoughts and feelings.” (1990a: 38) More specifically, “it is not possible to define a single set of criteria that describes the condition of oppression for [all] groups.” (1990a: 38)

It is additionally not possible to issue a single essentialist definition of oppression since

“different factors, or different combination of factors, constitute the oppression of

28 different groups, making their oppression irreducible.” (1990a: 40) Accordingly, Young set out to give plurality to the concept of oppression by categorizing five types of oppression – each experienced by one or more social grouping – under one banner of oppression. These are namely Exploitation, Marginalization, Powerlessness,

Cultural Imperialism, and Violence. (Young, 1990a) A notable disclaimer in Young’s theory is that she not only avoids giving a single essential view of oppression, she also avoids giving an account of oppression that is constituted by separate types of oppression: “On the one hand,” she notes, “this way of conceiving oppression fails to accommodate the similarities and overlaps in the oppressions of different groups; on the other hand, it falsely represents the situation of all group members as the same.”

(1990a: 58)

Madipoane Masenya (2005), in a quest to identify a black female theology, outrightly rejects the feminist movement’s origins as “racist”; therefore, she says, “I would prefer to call Black women who are engaged with liberation issues womanists rather than feminists.” (2005: 152) This is because as opposed to the main constituency of feminist movements, womanists (a theory that encompasses the perspectives of black women and other women of color without use of the prefix “Black”) do not enjoy any special privileges in South African society. Feminism then “is not an appropriate term for Black women in the unique situations.” (2005: 152) I have attempted to describe the socio-historical differences between traditional feminism and black feminism in the preceding paragraphs; and although womanism and black feminism share similar sentiments insofar as they are both concerned with the fight against sexism and racism meted against black women, they do differ in their respective aims.

Notable feminist author Alice Walker introduced the term ‘womanism’ (or ‘womanist’).

According to Walker (1983), the womanist is

A black feminist or feminist of color. […] Also a woman who loves other women,

sexually and/or nonsexually. Appreciates and prefers women’s culture,

women’s emotional flexibility (values tears as natural counterbalance of

laughter), and women’s strength. Sometimes loves individual men, sexually

and/or nonsexually. Committed to survival and wholeness of entire people,

male and female. […] Traditionally a universalist, as in: "Mama, why are we

brown, pink, and yellow, and our cousins are white, beige and black?” [Answer]:

“Well, you know the colored race is just like a flower garden, with every color

flower represented." […] Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender.

(Walker, 1983: 10-12)

Black feminism, on the other hand, “disrupts the false universal” of feminism. The term

“both highlights the contradictions underlying the assumed whiteness of feminism and serves to remind white women that they comprise neither the only nor the normative

"feminists."” (Patricial Hill Collins, 1996: 13) Further to this, womanism encompasses feminists of color while black feminism speaks specifically to the lived experiences of

African (or African American) women. When one says of a group of people that they are ‘persons of color’, one is referring to their being of any race so long as it is non- white. Womanism also encourages stronger relationships between black women and men; it therefore “seemingly supplies a way for black women to address gender oppression without attacking black men.” (1996: 11) The failure of the latter view is the lack of recognition in how black men have contributed to the oppression of black women, hence the emphasis in the request for equality even in black liberation spaces.

The recognition of particularly sexism meted out at black women is not necessarily limited to white spaces, but is persistent and perpetuated even in black spaces – by black men who should otherwise know better. The aforementioned dialogues therefore

30 represented the introduction of “not only race into feminist theory, but other categories of social relations as well - class, sexual orientation, ethnicity among others.” (1996:

11) In addition, “these debates tested the notion of triple oppression which basically postulated an additive or accumulative model of oppression - race plus class plus gender.” (Cheryl de la Rey, 1997b: 6) The idea is that one cannot present and therefore accept gender to encompass a single set of identities. This is similar to race as well as sexuality (and so on) for that matter. Hence, we cannot talk about my experience of being a black person without that conversation encompassing my experience of being a woman from a certain class grouping; “how I experience the social world and others' responses to me are inextricably tied to all these axes of difference.” (1997b: 7)

The above notion has been accepted by many black feminist scholars as a positivist view on human experience: the idea that all social experiences can be understood apart from the total human/social experience and thus in isolation from one another.

Furthermore, the dialogues also gave light to the fact that “debating representation opened up the space for feminist standpoint theory which argues for knowledge production situated in social positioning and location.” (1997b: 7) Such was the basis of the Women and Gender conference and other similar formations; that although there was a new narrative of black political liberation at the fore, genuine liberation for black women was the urgent realization that racism affected them differently from their male counterparts, while sexism did the same in relation to their white female counterparts. And that the different forms of knowledge had to embrace these differences in a way that positioned all manifestations of identity as intersecting, instead of merely universal.

Speaking on her experience with white South African men and women who had been active in the fight against apartheid, de la Rey, recalls the following:

Many white South African women (and men) seem to naively believe that

having been active in anti-apartheid movements distances them from racism

and hence they respond with apparent incredulity when there is any suggestion

that their behavior could be racist. In psychology texts, a distinction is typically

made between subtle and overt racism. I am ambivalent about the usefulness

of this distinction. Racist practices are offensive even when they are seemingly

benign. I often laugh at my some of my recent experiences, for example, how

often white people choose the adjective 'articulate' to describe me - is this my

most distinguishing feature? Would they call me articulate if I were white, I

wonder? I have a memory-bank full of accounts - many of my stories are less

benign and I don't find them amusing! (1997b: 8)

I have therefore attempted, through the above discussion of the earliest dialogues on the state of feminism in South Africa, to demonstrate that through the early calls to dismantle the essentialist view of women’s experiences in academic spaces (i.e. not to speak about traditional feminism as representing all women), that South African black women were cognizant of their peculiar position in traditional feminism. That is, that because of their social positioning as black female subjects in a racist-patriarchal society (read: world), they were immediately conscious of the inadequate representation of people-who-looked-like-them (and who thus shared their atypical experiences). This will form as the starting point in responding to the question of whether there is a need for a black feminist-centered politic in South Africa: the acknowledgment that the racist and sexist fabrics of South Africa have persisted well into the dawn of democracy; and that the undoing of this intersectional oppression

32 should wholly concede to black feminism as a radical alternative to South African politics as they stand today.

African Feminism

Similar to the definition of black feminism that I have provided above (in opposition to womanism), African feminism has largely encompassed a shift away from the universalism of traditional-liberal feminism and towards the realization of the social realities as experienced by particularly African women on the continent. According to

Susan Arndt (2002),

Generally speaking, African feminism gets to the bottom of African gender

relations and the problems of African women - illuminating their causes and

consequences - and criticizes them. In so doing, African feminism aims at

upsetting the existing matrix of domination and overcoming it, thus transforming

gender relationships and conceptions in African societies and improving the

situation of African women. (2002: 32)

One notable difference between also traditional black feminism (as a theory emanating and relating to the lived experiences of African American women) and African feminism (as a theory that aims to speak to the lived experiences of African women on the continent) that the author points out is that

African feminism aims at discussing gender roles in the context of other

oppressive mechanisms such as racism, neocolonialism, (cultural) imperialism,

socio-economic exclusion and exploitation, gerontocracy, religious

fundamentalism as well as dictatorial and/or corrupt systems. [In this way,]

African theories of feminism by far exceed even the race-class-gender

approach of African American feminism. (2002: 32)

The African is someone “whose geographic, historical and cultural ancestry is Africa, even though she or he may no longer regard themselves as African in the cultural sense. (i.e. African women in the diaspora3)” (Mangena, 2003: 99) This definition is important because it assists in highlighting the differences in experiences even within all African women. Which is to say, that there exists marked distinctions between the experiences of oppression by women who reside on the continent and those who are in the diaspora; most notably being the fact of African women residing on the continent experiencing the remnants of colonialism by way of extreme socio-economic inequalities as they persist on the continent today – “[while] the struggle of the African woman in the diaspora is the struggle for freedom, justice and equality.” (2003: 100)

Nevertheless, however many differences may exist within this grouping, all black (i.e.

African) women share the common goal of dismantling the racist-capitalist-patriarchal system that disadvantages them.

In the various texts analyzing the unique lived experiences of African women both on the continent and in the diaspora, two phrases are commonly used in describing the feelings that they have towards their condition. These are namely alienation (through oppression) and (perpetual) humiliation. They “[go] beyond the boundaries of nationality or ethnic affiliation [and] bind African women together [while urging] them towards united political action.” (2003: 100) Traditional feminism therefore “stands in the way of the African woman's resolute and irreversible march towards genuine liberation.” Moreover “any contradiction to [African feminism] is equal to the reintroduction of an injustice through the backdoor of 'science4'.” (2003: 100)

3 Emphasis mine. 4 The author records that traditional feminism has assumed the character of a ‘science’ because of the accusation of its universal nature in addressing the oppression of all women.

However, I have deliberately avoided using the paradigm provided by the African feminism theory since mine is an attempt at the exploration of oppression as it relates to South African black women in particular. That South African societal issues are intimately tied to those of the rest of the continent is indisputable, but what is also historically plain is that the different countries on the continent have had different histories – and thus different realities. Therefore although South African black feminism is discussed here as ‘separate’ from African feminism, the reader would not be faulted for taking South African black feminism to be an extension of African feminism – and that by focusing on South Africa, I am merely zooming into the racial- patriarchal issues of one country as they relate to the rest of the continent. By examining the socio-economic fabric of South Africa specifically, I want to demonstrate how, since it is largely characterized by the systematic isolation (through oppression) of its black female citizens, that the undoing of the latter would include adopting black feminism (as it relates to African feminism) as an alternative to the status quo.

It is therefore particularly important to reiterate that however much South African black women resisted the notion of “feminism” based on its exclusionary politic, that South

African black women do, and have always had an idea of what equality is and what it would mean for the liberation of all black people from the various forms of segregation

(colonialism, apartheid etc.). Which is to say, that although the theory of feminism and its principles were not fully articulated by the black South African women in their liberation narratives; that they had and have always been aware of their peculiar position in both the black liberation movements as well as the liberal feminist movements.

In demonstrating the above, I will rely on historical documentation of the women who partook in various organized resistance programmes against apartheid South Africa’s

35 racist policies to demonstrate that the idea of emancipation for black women had always been at the center of their politics – especially at a pivotal political time in South

Africa. That is, the time wherein the women would be faced with the colossal task of reimaging a world beyond that of just freedom from racism and its apartheid principles

– but that in which they are free from both racism and the sexism they endured in the very liberation movements that should have known better.

2.2. Role of South African women in resistance

Michael Ugorji (2011a) states that

[t]he ‘Black’ or African identity stereotyped and misrepresented as it were in the

Western media and society has endured as much of an adverse history as the

peoples that it represents. Beginning with the first encounter between African

territories and European explorers, to the slave trade and slavery era and on to

the colonial and present times, being ‘Black’ has been erroneously portrayed

in derogatory terms. Consequently, African Populations in the homeland and

in the Diaspora have suffered immeasurable indiscretions and various forms of

apartheid in the hands of other races, particularly the Caucasians. This

condition has been instituted and nourished by certain dogmas and theories of

racial supremacy most of which were products of expedient philosophizing.

(Ugorji, 2011a: 2)

The material conditions of apartheid in South Africa created conditions for segregation under the auspices of white minority rule. Segregation based on racial categorization had been previously used for centuries but was formally systematized in 1948 in South

Africa. At this time, the National Party had won the national election and subsequently promoted a system that was used to curb the rights of racial groups who were not

white; mainly black people who resided in South Africa. (I use the term “rights” loosely

since the system did not in itself recognize blacks as human beings deserving of rights

in the first instance.) This system was accompanied by numerous laws that served to

legitimize racial segregation. These laws respectively gave the white minority

population powers and privileges which sought to relegate people who were not white

out of areas and social activities deemed only for white people. These included, but

were not limited to, carrying special papers to visit certain areas (in addition to not

visiting the areas at certain times); not being able to participate in social and economic

activities such as voting and self-fulfilling labour; ownership of land as well as other

resources.

The decade of the establishment of these laws came to be known as “the era of petty

apartheid” (South African History Online: 2017a). The 1953 Reservation of Separate

Amenities Act called for segregation on all facilities for public use. These included

beaches, post offices, parks, toilets, various means of transportation etc. The

Population Registration Act formed the backbone of apartheid because it sought to

have people registered according to their racial group for ease of reference for the

apartheid government. The Group Areas Act of 1950 physically demarcated people

according to the racial group they belonged to. This included removing people from

the places they already inhabited. Notable instances were District Six and Sophiatown

where people were moved to townships outside these towns. Related to this was the

Promotion of the Bantu Self-Government Act of 1959 which demarcated different racial groups according to their racial groups. (2017a: SAHO)

The Bantu Education Act of 1953 was established to provide legal framework to establish an inferior education system for black scholars and further exclude them from

“the best” schools reserved only for white scholars. This was eventually extended to

Coloured and Indian scholars. The Extension of Higher University Education Act of

1959 was then enacted to prevent black students from enrolling in “white universities”

unless they had permission from the government as well as created universities for

the respective races. Furthermore, the Suppression of Communism Act of 1950 was

enacted to stunt the influence of political formations which were opposing the

government’s existing policy. It targeted any group or individual who, by use of

“unlawful acts”, sought to promote institutional change. Other notable laws included

the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949 which criminalized romantic interracial

relationships; the Immorality Amendment Act of 1950 which forbade extra-marital

romantic relations between whites and blacks; the Separate Representation of Voters

Act of 1951 which was part of the ideal by the then government to disable all non-white

people in South Africa from voting; and the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act of

1953 which sought to legalize the use of public premises, vehicles and services.

(2017a: SAHO)

Robert Rotich, Emilia Ilieva and Joseph Walunya (2015b) note that the unequal nature

of South African politics at that time was “mainly grounded on the system of labour

control, which was the most important factor in the sustenance of white capitalism.”

The said nature set forth a variety of other socio-spatial, economic, political and

cultural inequalities. South Africa’s society thus developed along racial profiling and

stereotyping, creating a complex system of racial groups that do not coincide socially

and economically. (2015b: 133) The phenomenon of labour control ensured the majority of black people in South Africa produced cheap labour to advance the economic interests of the white minority who were in political power.

Moreover, the Afrikaner government advanced their economic interests by establishing and managing the means of production as well as strategically investing

in state corporations, controlling imports and establishing enormous Afrikaner capital

to sustain Afrikaner capitalism. (2015b: 133) Labour control also confined black

people to the consequence of the Bantu Education Act which sought to provide African

pupils with separate and inferior education to their white counterparts. In addition, the

creation of Bantustans in the 1960s “became “dumping” grounds for Black people dismissed out of “white” urban spaces, and it became a strategy for influx control of

Black people into other forbidden spaces.” (2015b: 134)

As a consequence, the areas where these Bantustans were actualized such as

Transkei in the Eastern Cape resulted in mass underdevelopment and suffering of the black populations. These conditions existed under the Group Areas Act where black people were restricted to these areas which were historically designated for them so as to exclude them from areas reserved for beneficiaries of “productive life” i.e. white people. These legislations therefore “served the socioeconomic purpose of lifting the white South Africans, and especially the Afrikaners, into positions of wealth and privilege, in contrast to the other races.” (2015b: 134)

As Stephen Zunes (1999b) elaborately put it, apartheid South Africa’s position was unique to the global political structure of that time because it

practised one of history's most elaborate systems of internal colonialism, with

a white minority composed of less than one-fifth of the population in absolute

control. The ruling party […] controlled some of the world's richest mineral

deposits, including one-third of the earth's known gold reserves. Its internal

security system was elaborate and repressive. As a modern industrialised state

in an undeveloped region, South Africa's rulers created a degree of economic

hegemony, despite almost universal non-recognition of their legitimacy. It was

a pariah of international diplomacy, yet economically, and to a lesser extent

strategically, was well integrated into the Western system. (1999b: 137)

The agenda was clear: there was to be no promotion of the development, socio-

economically or otherwise, of racial groups unless they were white. The only possible

outcome of ‘racial order’ was to separate all racial groups and have one group ascend

to a supreme status at the cost of all other groups. What followed from the latter were

various forms of resistance that would ultimately assist in the overthrow of the above-

mentioned system of totalitarian control.

Additionally, and by way of demonstrating the practical examples of contemporary racism, Jonathan Manning (2004) asserts that

When the media reports a bus crash and identifies the number of European

tourists who died leaving viewers to guess how many black South Africans died,

that is the ideology of white superiority rearing its ugly head. When a ‘coloured’

(black person of mixed descent or person of colour) mother forces a comb

through her daughters long curly hair trying to untangle it into long straight hair,

that is the ideology manifesting itself in everyday life. When the value of the

South African currency dipped sharply both upon the appointment of a first

black Minister of Finance and then again when a first black Reserve Bank

Governor was appointed, it happens because of deficit thinking based upon the

ideological premise that black people are not to be trusted in positions of power,

and will not act as capably or responsibly as whites. (Manning, 2004: 528)

Resistance to Apartheid Domination, Practices, and Policies

From its formation in 1912, the African National Congress (ANC) was the default

organization for black people and other racial groups that were not in support of the

National Party and its archaic policies. Having used mainly legal tactics to overturn the

said policies for the bulk of their first phase in existence, the ANC’s “militant youth wing

ascended to the leadership in the early 1950s, with an orientation towards non-violent

direct action.” (1999b: 139) Its rival party, the Pan African Congress (PAC), formed in

1959, had followed suit in pursing freedom through non-violence but both parties went

on to be banned following the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre.

They subsequently employed various measures of armed resistance until the ANC

agreed to a ceasefire by 1991 amid negotiations with the government. At this point the

PAC had mostly fractured as a result “internal fictionalization and lack of internal and external support.” (1999b: 139) With the cooperation of the South African Indian

Congress (SAIC), the ANC formed the Programme of Action in 1952 which came to

be known as the Defiance Campaign. The campaign was characterized by the show

of defiance by the members of the ANC against the various apartheid laws. The

effectiveness of the campaign was that it “took place in the context of a stay-away

from work, thus affecting the country’s economy.” (Motlhabi, 1987: 6) In 1955, the

campaign led to a gathering, namely the Congress of the People, and subsequently

adopted the Freedom Charter; a principle of freedom collectively established by the

ANC, the SAIC, the South African Coloured People’s Organisation (SACPO) and the

Congress of Democrats, jointly known as the Congress Alliance. (1987: 7)

The PAC, led by Robert Mangaliso Subukwe, engaged in a national campaign against

pass laws (laws that restricted movement by demanding a presentation of “pass”

documents at certain intersections) in 1960 by burning their passes and submitting

themselves to arrest. Initially a peaceful protest, it turned violent when police officials

began to open fire on protesters, fatally injuring many. Sharpeville became the name

which was “symbolic of this national campaign and the police brutality.” (1987: 8) What

41 followed from Sharpeville was the country being declared as a state of emergency, resulting in the ANC and PAC being banned and forced underground. After a lengthy search by the government, key members in both parties were finally captured and convicted in 1963 for the activities both carried out while underground (the PAC killings of marked whites and black informants and the ANC’s various strategies of sabotage).

(1987: 8) Nelson Mandela came to be known as the symbol of the failure of the ANC’s

Umkhonto we Sizwe (The Spear of the Nation) – the ANC’s underground militant wing

– to achieve change using non-violent efforts.

With the removal of the ANC, the PAC, and practically all agents of resistance from the “free reigns” of the community, “the system was seemingly beginning to be self- fulfilling, at last.” (1987: 8) This was until the emergence of a new student led organization that went by the South African Students Organisation (SASO) in the

1960’s. Mokgethi Motlhabi recalls that the organization began to campaign for membership by publicly speaking against the government’s many unjust policies;

“some of us wondered whether they were from Mars. Did they know what was happening in the country?” (1987: 9), lamented the author. SASO became the dominant movement of the 1970’s and resulted in the birth of the Black People’s

Convention which adopted black consciousness as its philosophy. Its focus was on a

“withdrawal from socio-political action toward re-motivating the people and helping them to redefine their goal and inculcating self-reliance.” (1987: 9)

Their slogan ‘Black man, you are on your own’, was synonymous with the instance that black people rediscover their capabilities so that they are fully equipped to run the country after freedom had been actualized. The Azanian People’s Organisation

(AZAPO) was then established in 1978 as the replacement of the Black People’s

Convention. AZAPO notably engaged in indirect political action against the

42 government by focusing on “instigating sports and cultural boycotts of South Africa by overseas performers, campaigning against foreign direct investment, contributing toward the formation of trade unions and their activity, and other people-oriented kinds of activities and campaigns.” (1987: 10) 1983 saw the establishment of the National

Forum and the United Democratic Front three months after it, as reactions to the government’s decision to embrace tricameralism. This meant the participation of mixed raced and/or ‘coloured’ and Indian people in parliament, at the blatant exclusion of black people.

The ANC’s ‘Programme of Action’ was therefore their first and most robust plan to counter the apartheid policies. It called on the organization and its supporters to

“embark on mass action, involving civil disobedience, strikes, boycotts and other forms of non-violent resistance” (2017a: SAHO). The 1952 Defiance Campaign was their first large-scale political mobilization against the unjust policies advocated by the apartheid government where more than “8000 volunteers were arrested for failing to carry passes, violating curfew, and entering locations and public facilities designed for one race only.” (2017a: SAHO) Government responded with harsh penalties which included, but were not limited to, prison sentences. The most robust of response was the 1953 Public Safety Act whose aim was to overrule laws and judicial interventions, declaring a State of Emergency to allow them to impose the aforementioned penalties in accordance with their prerogative.

Women and Resistance

The role women played in the struggle against oppressive policies enacted under apartheid has often not been given similar mainstream appreciation as that of men.

Joy James stated that “historically, the image of freedom fighters has been

43 masculinized, a fact that furthers the erasure of black women in activism.” (1999a: 2)

Their role has nevertheless been significant and worthy of analysis. According to anti- apartheid activist Frene Ginwala (1990b), the ANC in the first 30 years of existence was characterized by the exclusion of women from “full membership” regardless of

“the participation of women in the deliberations, decision-making and campaigns of the organization (though not in the leadership).” (1990b: 57) The fact of women’s barring from political frameworks did however not translate to their nonexistence in shaping political narratives.

Colonial conquest and rule was the subject of all the lives of the South African people, but they indeed were different in the way women and men experienced it; informed largely by the difference in their socio-economic and political status. The differences were thus notable since they “shaped their particular response, helped to determine the issues they took up, and the methods of struggle adopted.” (Ginwala, 1990b: 57)

Furthermore, the founding fathers of the ANC who met in 1912 in Bloemfontein to assist in drafting the Constitution had evidently concluded that it was an organization for men, and women only served as those who brought comfort to their male counterparts so the latter could perform the duties of the liberation project with great proficiency. Placed before founding Congress, the specific section of the constitution read as follows:

All the wives of the members of any affiliated branch or branches and other

distinguished African ladies where the Congress or Committee therefore shall

be holding its sessions shall ipso facto become auxiliary members of the

Congress during the period of such session. ... It shall be the duty of all auxiliary

members to provide suitable shelter and entertainment for delegates to the

Congress. (1990b: 58)

Exceptions were made, however, for “exceptional women” who had “rendered eminent service to the native races of South Africa.” (1990b: 59) Ginwala notes that by 1912, activist and educator Charlotte Maxeke had already been taking part in a number of resistance organisations that later formed part of the ANC’s political structure. She was one of three representatives from the Transvaal who had been sent to the ANC’s conference in the Cape in 1902; “her contribution was highly praised, but the franchise- orientated SANNC concluded that the time was not right for women to participate in political organizations.” (1990b: 59) Born in Ramokgopa in the Polokwane

(Pietersburg) District on April 7 1874, Maxeke was the first black woman to receive a college degree; and was to become influential in the formation of the Bantu Women's

League which later became part of the African National Congress Women's League

(ANCWL).

The abovementioned Women’s League was a result of the 1913 Orange Free State

Anti-Pass Campaign which became the benchmark of which women’s political significance was to be realized. Judith Nolde (1991) noted black female activism as the energy that was the bedrock of promoting change in South African politics. She records that “as early as 1910, women protested and thus effected the withdrawal of the 1893 law that required all African and coloured women to produce work permits

(“passes”) on request by police in order to establish their right to be in the area.”

(Nolde, 1991: 213) The 1950s saw more pass protests led by women. In addition, the

1979 decision that rent in Soweto would increase saw an even robust intervention by women, so much so that “there were enough protests by women that the rents did not increase.” (1991: 213)

In 1957, then secretary of the ANCWL Florence Mposho organized mainly black women in townships to boycott the Public Utility Transportation Company (PUTCO).

The boycott was not for racial integration “since African women, not other racial groups, were the ones transported in the buses from the townships of Alexandra,

Sophiatown and Lady Shelborne to major cities, where they worked primarily as domestic servants” (Terborg-Penn, 1990b: 153), rather it was for the 1959 bus fare increase. The fare increase was sufficiently great in comparison to the wages they were already earning. The boycott was economically motivated because PUTCO faced bankruptcy as a result; it was to be victorious in the end. Terbog-Penn also notes that the boycott was influenced by the “strategies earlier protesting women used in

1943 and in 1944, when they helped to organize bus boycotts in Alexandria against fare increases. In both cases, women walked up to 18 miles a day boycotting buses.

The 1943 boycott lasted nine days, but the 1944 boycott lasted seven weeks.” (1990b:

153)

In addition to those I mention above, several other women’s organizations have been at the forefront of anti-apartheid activism. In the 1930s, the Communist Party of South

Africa (CPSA) began to embrace the idea of organizing and including women in various political levels. As a result, trade unionist Ray Alexander Simons joined the

Communist Party and played a significant role in preparing the preliminary for establishing the Federation of South African Women (FSAW). Born and residing in

Latvia, she arrived in South Africa in 1929 with the aim of forming unions in support of women’s working conditions in Cape Town. Her contributions included promoting issues concerning women such as the need to organize, women's poor working conditions, and the difficulties faced by women who have dual employment. In addition, she appealed to Congress for organizational and educational work among women. (1991: 214)

FSAW was thus established in 1954 with the guidance of Alexander and social worker

Helen Joseph. The aim of its formation was for “the need for a mass women's organization to struggle against forms of exploitation which particularly affected women, and to encourage women to participate more actively in the broader anti- apartheid struggle.” (1991: 214) In addition to that, and perhaps most notably, there was consensus that “a specific women's organization was needed to fight against the sexism existing within other anti-apartheid organizations.” (1991: 214) FSAW’s most noteworthy outcome was the resistance against passes which were extended well into the 1950s. Approximately twenty thousand women marched to the Union Buildings in

Pretoria (the official seat of the South African government and also houses the offices of the President of South Africa) on August 9th 1956 in protest, a day which has presently come to commemorate women in the form of a public holiday namely

National Women’s Day.

In 1955, a small group of English-speaking white middle-class women organized and formed the Women's Defence of the Constitution League. Their objective was to protest against the Nationalist Party’s plan to expand the Senate and thus secure the two-thirds majority needed to take black and colored voters off the common voters' roll. They used the black rose as their emblem and wore black sashes during demonstrations in a bid to “to mourn the abrogation of the South African Constitution by the Nationalist Party.” (1991: 215) The name of the organization subsequently changed to Black Sash. Their contributions ranged from setting up education centers and advising women of their legal rights.

Furthermore, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) in 1985 adopted resolutions on the advancement of working women in South Africa. The resolutions demonstrated support for women to further organize on issues they face relating to

47 working conditions. In response to the working conditions of domestic workers, the

South African Institute for Race and Relations in 1972 began the Domestic Workers and Employers Project (DWEP). Its mandate was to improve the working lives of domestic workers by improving their working conditions, revising their wage conditions, and improving their personal images. (1991: 216) In 1977, Florence de

Villiers and Maggie Owens formed the National Domestic Workers Union. The union’s objective was to improve the workers’ conditions and is affiliated to COSATU.

In addition, Mongameli Mabona (1996b) notes that during his stay in London between

1971 and 1977, there were thousands of South African’s who had stayed there seeking exile. Moreover

Many men, whose careers and life expectations had been shattered by a

sudden transplantation to an alien and often unsympathetic environment, were

disoriented and demoralized. In most of these cases the women became pillars

of strength and struggled against all odds to keep the families together. There

was much time spent by the menfolk in the London pubs. The women took the

initiative to organise cultural associations and purely women gatherings. It was

mostly thanks to the women that South African families and the South African

communities survived in exile. (1996b: 159)

This was a very important observation, particularly because it helps to highlight the fact that not only did women play a generous role in the activism of the freedom project, but that that role is systematically diminished not only then but in the mainstream interpretations of anti-apartheid heroisms. (i.e. Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Chris

Hani as the face(s) of the South African freedom project) In For Their Triumphs and

For Their Tears: Women in Apartheid South Africa, Hilda Bernstein (1985b) notes that

“on [black women’s] backs rests a vast super-structure of law and of custom, in which the habits and institutions of an old, pastoral society are cemented into a modern industrialized state.” (1985b: 7)

Activist, academic and businesswoman Mamphela Ramphele made the following assertions about the Black Consciousness movement (of which she was a member) in relation to the experiences of the black female political members:

I think it is important to realise that the Black Consciousness (BC) Movement

came into a cultural and political environment in which women, whether they

were black or white, didn't matter as leaders. It wasn't a peculiarity of the BC

Movement to focus on men. I think the focus on black men had the unintended

consequence of actually triggering in some of us the sense that we're more than

just black people who are oppressed; we were also black women who were

oppressed, both by the very system that oppressed black men and by the black

men themselves – the very sense of being silent, being invisible. The language

didn't have space for women, partly because it was a language borrowed from

a culture, English culture, which never accepted women really as full citizens.

(Yates, Gqola, & Ramphele, 1998: 90)

In addition,

It is simply an interesting observation because 'Black man you are on your own'

was the rallying cry of the BC Movement. If a translation from an African

language had been used it would not have had these connotations. It would not

have said, for example in Xhosa, Ndodemnyama ume wedwa (Direct translation

for “Black man, you are on your own”). It would have said, 'Mntomnyama' (black

person), which is more inclusive. So for me really, the BC Movement spoke of

psychological oppression as being an integral part of any oppressive situation

and identified the agency of the oppressed in being able to overcome

psychological oppression. By taking charge of their own definition of

themselves, their own self-reliance, actually enabled me to put into context how,

as a 'Black woman', I could also overcome the psychological oppression of

being a woman, and therefore being seen as 'other', and inferior. (Yates, Gqola,

& Ramphele, 1998: 90)

Highlighting the activist roles that women played in the various resistance movements not only displays the ways in which black women had always held the notion of equality even before these were subsequently vocabularized; it also brings to the fore the fact that current aspects of South African women’s lives are embedded in the remainders of the apartheid system. Which is to say that “women's position(s) [are] primarily determined by a patriarchal sex system and that the division of labour by class and race stems from that system.” (Casaburri, I.M., 1986: 40)

Therefore, and as I will elaborate further, the question of whether there is a need for black feminism in South Africa is precisely located in the socio-economic history that has largely shaped South Africa’s current socio-political context in relation to its black women. This I describe as the intersectional oppression that still persists for black women in South Africa. The idea here is that if we take the remnants of racism as they still persist today together with sexism (which is a product of colonialism that bled into apartheid) we are able to produce an argument that not only recognizes how racism and sexism intersect to produce more types of oppression for black women; but that this very process is the very basis to argue for a black female advancement strategy that propels alternatives to anti-black sexism in South Africa.

The argument of feminism’s (and by extension “black feminism’s”) geopolitics in a topic of this nature will perhaps always fall within the inconsistency fallacy for critics; that is the argument of whether it is indeed appropriate to attempt to use “feminism” (or in this case “black feminism”) and all its politics of origin in the unique setting of South

African gender relations. This is because the argument is generally justified in its criticism – feminism as a term did arise as a movement to describe the politics of a certain group of women, and so did black feminism (for black and other women of color in the US). However, and most importantly, the idea of opposing patriarchy was never alien to (South) African women. And whilst the latter never did use the noun

“feminism”, I have for example attempted to demonstrate above that as far back as we can trace, South African women have always found ways to oppose patriarchy. The most notable of this account is the biography of Winnie Mandela. Through her activism

(widely characterized as ‘militant motherhood’) Winnie concretized black feminism; and she did this while refusing to openly ‘label’ herself as a feminist.

But Winnie’s story also demonstrated a pervasive reality for black women in South

Africa: the systematic rejection through the intersection of racism (White Supremacy) and sexism (Patriarchy). Although hers was exaggerated by the height of apartheid and segregation, Winnie’s life story – including her death – demonstrated intersectional oppression particularly when she was rejected by both the apartheid forces as well as her male comrades who furthered her othering. Her story also lays bare the plight of black women in South Africa as it permeates through different socio- political shifts in society, further advancing the argument that South Africa ought to adopt a Black Feminist politic in order to alter the social fabric that informs racialized patriarchy.

2.2.1 Winnie Madikizela-Mandela: Of the Casualties of White Supremacy

and Patriarchy

In The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir (1949) makes the following assertion:

It would never occur to a man to write a book on the singular situation of males

in humanity. If I want to define myself, I […] have to say, “I am a woman”; all

other assertions will arise from this basic truth. A man never begins by positing

himself as an individual of a certain sex: that he is a man is obvious. (1949: 25)

The existence of a man is sociologically concrete: he need not reaffirm nor reinforce the fact of his existence since all that is inherent in society systematically works to his advantage. And if he in fact is to posit himself as a member of the male sex, the conditions emanating from this positioning will always be favourable to him. That women have to continuously do the work of defining themselves speaks to their relegation in society – they are constantly doing the work to convince society of their worth as female human beings. De Beauvoir adds that “the man represents both the positive and the neuter [while] Woman is the negative, to such a point that any determination is imputed to her as a limitation, without reciprocity.” (1949: 25)

Therefore what is implicit where the woman is concerned is that her realm is corroded by a systematic negation of her humanity. She represents the “lesser man”, the subject whose humanity is informed by the male subject to such an extent that the possibility of her achievements (or actions) are limited in relation to that of the man.

Nomzamo Nobandla Winnifred Madikizela-Mandela (hereafter ‘Winnie’) has become one of the most iconic and simultaneously controversial political figures of the post- apartheid era. After her marriage to Nelson Mandela in 1958, followed by his notable imprisonment in 1964 (including the imprisonment and banishment into exile of a

52 number of political leaders), Winnie actively became the champion of the ANC (since its ‘leader’ was silenced through banishment) and arguably picked up the baton in keeping the legacies of both the ANC and her imprisoned husband alive. This gave her the status of a political activist in her own right. Related to this however, it is important to note that even before her marriage, Winnie had already cultivated a political consciousness that was largely informed by her newfound experiences of racism in Johannesburg after she moved from the Transkei in search for opportunities through which she could realize her lifelong dream of becoming a social worker. “She was particularly affected by the research she had carried out in Alexandra Township as a social worker to establish the rate of infantile mortality, which stood at 10 deaths for every 1,000 births.” (SAHO, 2011)

Emily Bridger (2015c) notes that,

Over the following decades she suffered a number of abuses at the hands of the

apartheid state: she was banned from attending meetings or giving speeches; she

was imprisoned for 491 days (the majority of which was spent in solitary

confinement); and in 1977 she was banished to the Free State town of Brandfort,

located over 200 miles away from her home and political base. […] She was

particularly well-known for her fierce advocacy of militant action in making

townships ‘ungovernable’ and toppling the apartheid regime, which earned her

widespread approbation, particularly from the militant youth now in the forefront of

the struggle. (2015: 446)

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of her political activism is how, in her various speeches, she would refer to the youth or those younger than she was as ‘my children’.

When political activists spoke of the people that needed to be freed from the shackles

of apartheid (i.e. black people), they would invoke inclusive terms such as ‘our people’

or ‘our movement’ - but it was Winnie’s use of ‘my children’ (and its various political

manifestations) that would come to define political motherhood in South Africa’s

apartheid state.5 Moreover,

while her speeches were commonly infused with revolutionary rhetoric, her

discourse also emphasized her identity as a mother, not just to her own children

but to the community as a whole, by making repeated references to the suffering

of children and women’s maternal duty to protect against and even avenge this

suffering. (2015: 446)

Women were traditionally assigned nurturing roles during times of war and conflict; but

what Winnie’s political activism demonstrated was the unprecedented merging of

motherhood with political militancy. While it can be argued that motherhood is by

definition characterized by the protection of their offspring throughout their lives,

Winnie’s motherhood mattered particularly because she became the political mother

to millions of racalized South Africans (hence ‘Mother of the Nation’). She therefore

expressed political motherhood in a manner that was unfamiliar (and perhaps most

notably, uncomfortable) in the South African case:

First, she promoted a more assertive and less traditional role for women in her

defiance of gender norms and male authority, subsequently redefining her

relationship with men through politics and showing other women they could do the

same. Second, she not only talked about militancy but also physically embodied it

in her actions and relationships with township youth. For this, she was greatly

5 She famously pronounced her support of the #FeesMustFall campaign: “I will be joining my children in Protest at Wits today. Rhodes tomorrow, and NMMU (Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth) on Friday. Let us see if the police will shoot with me in the front line. I dare them to.”

admired by many Soweto residents, particularly politicized women and militant

youth. (Bridger, 2015: 447)

Between the years 1986 and 1989, the spotlight on Winnie shone the brightest, but would later turn into a target. This was in relation to her association and thus relationship with political violence. Informed by the political context of the time, political violence took various forms: there was the increasing forms of state repression, corresponding violent challenges to the repression by the state, as well as (and most notable in discussions on the life of Winnie) violent challenge to the black activists who were accused of collaborating with the state (i.e. ‘informers’ or the so-called ‘third force’ of the state). The effect of the latter was to “create a context in which revolutionary violence was seen to encompass direct attacks on individuals.” (Shireen

Hassim, 2014b: 59)

Yet (Nelson) Mandela could not have functioned as [an] icon without the figure

of his wife, Winnie Mandela: the correlate mother of the nation, the woman

through whom Mandela could be reached and whose every visit to her husband

on Robben Island was watched for a political signal. For ANC activists, the

Robben Island visits were politically important: What message did Mandela

have for the nation? Did he support this or that strategy? Was he proud of his

nation? […] Throughout his incarceration, Winnie stood in for Nelson,

sometimes acting as his ventriloquist and at other times using the space that

the iconic status created to advance a political position of her own. (2014b: 59)

Nevertheless, between the years 1997 to 1998 Winnie was tried and found guilty of various counts of transgressions relating to political violence by the Truth and

Reconciliation Commission (TRC), without corroborating evidence. Joy James

55 correctly states that “what often distracts attention from the fruits of black women's labours are depoliticizing representations that obscure their contributions to democratic politics.” (1999a: 2) Winnie’s life story through the effects of her political activism attests to this very idea; that black women’s contribution to ‘the struggle’, however remarkable, are reduced to their relationship with black men as political extensions instead of active participants. In her militancy as a political mother, Winnie changed the trajectory of the mainstream conception of a struggle activist – the black militant male who is the head of the household and through whom the freedom of his black family was dependent on. Yet true to the anti-black female establishment, she became the symbol of disobedience because she could not be controlled – not by the state and its military might, and certainly not by those black male activists that could not concede to the idea of a woman entering the arena as their ‘political equal’.

In her most famous of accounts, she solidified her identity as the soldier who rewrote the narrative of the struggle for herself and for the many black women who were married to ‘struggle heros’ and yet had their own (and sometimes different) political consciousness, in addition to standing against the erasure of such women. Here she reflects on the impact that her own marriage to Nelson Mandela had on her self-worth:

I was aware of the fact that suddenly I discovered, “Oh I have no name now” –

everything I did [was] as “Mandela’s wife”. I lost my individuality: “Mandela’s wife

said this”, “Mandela’s wife was arrested.” It did not matter who the hell I was; it did

not matter that I was a Madikizela; it did not matter that I was a human being… So

I thought, “My goodness, I’ve grown up a princess in my own home; I come from

the Royal House of Pondoland; and suddenly I’ve lost my identity because of this

struggle. I am going to fix them. I will fight them and I will establish my own identity”.

I deliberately did that. I said I was not going to bask in his shadow and be known

as “Mandela’s wife”: they were going to know me as Zanyiwe Madikizela. I fought

for that. I said, “I will not bask even in his politics. I am going to form my own identity

because I never did bask in his ideas”. I had my own mind. (2014b: 74)

When news broke of Winnie’s death on 2 April 2018, there was a sudden shift in the way political narratives of the struggle period came to be accepted. The once comfortable terrain of black male leaders of the struggle was turned on its head; and in perhaps the cruelest form of remembrance, most of the previous negative conceptions of Winnie were found to have been inaccurate. South Africans were at last furnished with the correct accounts on the Stompie Seipei folktale as well as the uncovering of the massive Security Branch activities aimed at discrediting and thus isolating Winnie. Pascale Lamche’s award-winning documentary titled ‘Winnie’ was made available on the various television networks, and it laid bare the extent to which the apartheid regime was willing to go to neutralize her as a political opponent.

“We will destroy that woman,” were the words of General Hendrik van den

Bergh, head of the intelligence apparatus in the 1960s and '70s. In the

(aforementioned) documentary, the director of Stratcom (Covert Strategic

Communications) Vic McPherson reveals the details of Operation Romulus – a

counter-revolutionary strategy which had Madikizela-Mandela as its primary

target. The goal was to discredit her to such an extent that she would be isolated

and eliminated from the inner circle of the ANC. Aware that it was losing power,

the National Party wanted a centrist ANC to emerge, which meant that it needed

to delegitimize the radical wing of the ANC personified by figures such as

Madikizela-Mandela, Chris Hani, Harry Gwala and Peter Mokaba. “I already

had 40 journalists working directly or indirectly for me. So through them I could

have specific reports placed in the newspapers, and it would be front page,”

McPherson boasts. “I made a documentary film through the SABC of course

that I flogged to America, and it was shown on 40 different channels. And that

led to her being declared an international terrorist.” (Shannon Ebrahim, 2018a:

Independent Online)

In addition, Ebrahim records that

In a stunning confession […] former Security Branch policeman Paul Erasmus,

who worked for Stratcom, further outlined how the smear campaign worked,

saying: “I would drop letters to the local and international press about Winnie

being a hopeless drunkard, unstable and having relationships with everyone

that came along. On the political side, it was to drive divisions between her and

the ANC.” (Ebrahim, 2018a: Independent Online)

But, as Winnie would come to learn, it was also her comrades in the ANC that would become protagonists in the story of her political decline:

In the documentary, Madikizela- Mandela suggests that the subpoena for her to

testify at the TRC was linked to her nomination for deputy president of the ANC.

“The subpoena could have been served last year. It was an unhealthy coincidence

in my mind that this must happen a few days before the national conference. To

me, it suggests that it is part and parcel of that agenda,” Madikizela-Mandela said

at the TRC. “I was the only one in the ANC who was taken to the TRC by her own

government,” she said. (Ebrahim, 2018a: Independent Online)

The hostile relationship Winnie endured within her party, at that time having risen up the leadership ranks (as it was the case with many other notable – or well known – freedom fighters) further illustrated the tensions that were largely informed by the unwillingness by many comrades to be led by a woman.

Accorded a secondary role as the wife of Nelson, her agency as a committed

cadre was always called into question. She had no status within the leadership

collective until her husband was released from prison and under his direction

she was given positions in both the African National Congress and the new

government. She felt misrecognized, reduced – almost in the same terms as

she experienced solitary conﬁnement– as a nothing. (2014b: 76)

As a woman who had dared to carry herself in the same stature and demeanor that most male leaders were notorious for – this was not only unheard of but also flew in the face of the usual roles that women freedom fighters were expected to play: meek and agreeing, and with no meaningful political contribution as far as policies were concerned. Therefore,

Stepping outside the agreed parameters of the ofﬁcial party line on what kind

of strategies should be adopted was a form of asserting her independence, a

form of refusal of the terms of political cadreship that were available to women

in the African National Congress and in society more generally. She justiﬁes

her advocacy of violence not within the terms of maternalism, but within those

of militarism within the ANC’s accepted bounds of disciplined cadreship. In

retrospect, she presents her life as a feminist struggle for political autonomy.

(2014: 76)

Furthermore, in a remarkable demonstration of political sexism as it reared its ugly head after tributes poured in and various political figures who had shared the anti- apartheid arena with Winnie were interviewed in remembrance of her life, former president Thabo Mbeki gave one of the following (most notable) accounts:

It's not as though Winnie worked alone. They were in the struggle, they were a

collective ... When you talk about people engaged in the struggle ready to sacrifice,

sure, she was part of that ... I think in celebrating her, we need to talk in those

terms. (Huffington Post, 2018b)

The argument of whether this was an appropriate form of ‘eulogizing’ notwithstanding

(i.e. many counterarguments warned against the dangers of ‘speaking ill of the dead’),

it was the blatant refusal to accept the political ‘giant’ that Winnie was that had sent

shockwaves throughout South African feminist and non-feminist circles alike. That the

former statesman could not conceal his difficulty in accepting the crucial historical

contribution that Winnie made to antiracism (and antisexism!) in his absence (while he

and many of his peers were in political exile outside of the country) was astonishing.

Equally astonishing was indeed the timing of his remarks, in addition to the urge to

wish to control the narrative used to mourn the death of a female leader.

This painful negation was further highlighted by Mbeki’s covert intention to erase

Winnie’s direct experience (through resistance) with apartheid through racism and

sexism on the ground, as if to allude that it was ‘not all that bad’ for her and that

perhaps mourners were exaggerated in their response to her life and times. Painful

also because his criticism seemed to suggest that black male anti-apartheid leaders –

even those dearly departed with whom the former statesman had previously had no

issues eulogizing through individual praise – were being erased from the liberation

narrative; that they too were there, it was not just Winnie! In this way, Mbeki not only

demonstrated blatant sexism but chillingly played to the gallery of the same racialized

patriarchy that he and his ilk claimed to have fought against6.

6 Former President Nelson Mandela had also made similar remarks when popular American talk show host Oprah Winfrey enquired on Winnie’s role in activities of the liberation movement.

Winnie, in life and in death, embodied the very need for a radical departure from

patriarchy and racism. That she was recognized as a ‘giant’ in the movement was

noteworthy, but all the more noteworthy was that a black woman could defiantly occupy the toxic terrain of white supremacy and patriarchy through fierce resistance and against all odds in a bid to realize freedom. Her life, through various forms of resistance demonstrated that black women have the capacity to be agents of their freedom, and indeed that they are able to be change agents in the same way (if not more) that many black male freedom fighters are recognized for. And even in the post- apartheid context, Winnie’s life (and subsequent death) demonstrated the dire need for a black feminist-centered social dawn.

Chapter Three: Case studies on Racialized Patriarchy in Postcolonial South

Africa

3.1. Anti-Black Sexism – Current Contexts

1994 in South Africa was the breakthrough year in which all South Africans black and white, male and female were for the first time allowed to participate in the elections together. Beyond participation in elections, it signified the ushering in of a new democratic order: one that encompassed equality and social cohesion. Citizenship in

South Africa had for decades been proven by the right to take part in elections through voting; a luxury that was previously only enjoyed by white men in South Africa, with white women only gaining permission in 1930. The new 1996 Constitution gave women unparalleled recognition; for the first time in the country’s history all women were given recognition as legal citizens of South Africa who were equals in every aspect of society. Section 9 (3) of the Constitution states:

The state may not unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on

one or more grounds, including race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status,

ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion,

conscience, belief, culture, language and birth. (Constitution of South Africa,

1996)

In addition, with the prominence of corrective government policies in support of Black female employment in the post-apartheid era (i.e. affirmative action policies as a form of redressing past injustices), black women are indeed beginning to find employment outside the household – with some succeeding to top managerial positions as well as high political offices. However, the persistent problem wherein most black women have to balance the demanding pressures of both the work life and the life of the

62 household continuously rears its head. Davis speaks of the subordination of black women within the participation of production as “a state of familial servitude and social inferiority not by men in general, but rather by the ruling class.” 2000b: 170)

She adds that:

As an independent being, as someone else’s inorganic extension, the price of

women’s entry into production was surplus exploitation (grossly inferior wages),

and jobs which, on the whole, were far less fulfilling than the stultifying labour

assigned to men. […] But considering that the median earnings of women are

about half that of men (and for black women even less), it is clear that female

oppression has only sunk deep into the apparatus. (2000b: 171)

Moreover, Belinda Bazzoli (1983: 141) states that:

female low wages [are] a manifestation of capitalist manipulation and division

of the working class; the nuclear family, and the isolated unpaid or low paid

labour performed by the woman (wife or domestic servant) within it, serves to

lower the cost of reproduction of labour power; the black woman in the reserve

economies also functions to lower the cost of reproduction of labour power;

women act as a reserve army of labour, to be absorbed and rejected by

capitalism in times of economic prosperity and depression respectively, and so

on. Female subordination and inferiority do in fact suit the capitalist mode of

production in certain crucial ways[.]

However, and perhaps most notably, “many of the new laws fail[ed] to acknowledge how women in different race groups are differently privileged, dealing with them as if their lived experiences were homogeneous.” (Hames, 2006: 1314) In this Chapter, I provide a discussion on these laws/policies and include the overall failures that have

accompanied them – these are possible threats to the revolution that is Black

Feminism in South Africa. The Constitution of South Africa (1996) made provisions for the creation of the Gender Commission as a Chapter Nine institution in line with the

Bill of Rights. This was accompanied by a rights-based approach that the new

government adopted in dealing with issues pertaining to women. The approach was

premised on the assumption that all women could seek legal recourse when

their rights were violated. Such legal mechanisms included the Constitutional

Court, the Equality Court, the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and

Arbitration (CCMA), special Family Courts and labour courts. A national Office

on the Status of Women (OSW) was established and located in the Office of

the Deputy President. The OSW was mandated to draw up a National Gender

Policy. Another function of the OSW is the monitoring of state policies with

regard to women and gender within the different government ministries and

departments. (2006: 1315)

Parliament also issued a new monitoring body namely the Joint Committee on

Improvement of Quality of Life and Status of Women whose primary focus was “to

ensure that the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against

Women (CEDAW) and the Beijing Platform of Action are implemented.” (2006: 1315)

In addition, “it also monitors procedures, policies and checks on legislation as they are

conceptualized and manifested within parliament, and conducts open hearings where

civil society is invited to submit either oral or written submission.” (2006: 1315)

The South African government propagated a number of progressive laws that protect

women’s constitutional rights. Labour laws for instance have become more “women

friendly”, for instance the Labour Laws of 1995 incorporate a Code of Good Conduct

64 that impel places of employment to have sexual harassment policies in place. The

Basic Conditions of Employment Act stipulates and promotes the requirements of adequate maternity leave; the Employment Equity Act recognizes women as falling into special categories that make them candidates for affirmative action employment; the Skills Development Act makes the provision to promote skills development for women as a previously disadvantaged group so that they level the playing field of employment; and the Basic Conditions of Employment Act assists in laying out conditions for minimum wages, housing, and healthcare for the previously disadvantaged women. (2006: 1316)

Other forms of legislation include the Basic Child Support Grant which provides grant support to children up until age 18; the Maintenance Act of 1998 which compels both parents of a child to assist financially up until the child becomes gainfully employed; the Domestic Violence Act (DVA) of 1998 promotes “women's rights to bodily integrity and freedom from violence”; and the Choice on the Termination of Pregnancy Act of

1996 recognizes the rights to “early, legal and safe abortions.” (2006: 1316) Another notable provision is the promotion of the right to freedom of sexual orientation. South

Africa is widely acknowledged as one of the few countries in Africa to have the friendliest climate for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and “where homosexual partnerships and the right to sexual orientation are constitutionally recognized and protected.” (2006: 1316)

What these laws ultimately display is that the rights of South African women insofar as they require equality have been the responsibility of the state. Therefore since every aspect of South African black women’s lives is protected under a legislation that recognized them as previously disadvantaged women in a bid to propel them on an equal footing with white men and women (and as an extension, black men), failure to

65 adhere and thus monitor progress in the various legislations falls at the feet of the state. But it is precisely the need for such legislation, and the fact that conditions that required such legislation still persist, that a South African black feminist politic is required. That is, that in acknowledging how black women being recognized as a previously disadvantaged group remains the status quo in South Africa; that a new radical way of structuring the lives of black women in South Africa is vital.

Nevertheless, the Stats SA South African Demographic and Health Survey report for the 2016/2017 period said of specifically black African women from rural areas that they were at the greatest risk to falling victim to abuse at the hands of their intimate partners. At this economic level, the height of danger for the women is when they leave their abusive partners. This trend has persisted as is apparent in recent media reports on pervasive femicide across most poor sectors of the country. The 1998 Domestic

Violence Act recognizes verbal, psychological, emotional and physical abuse as forms of domestic violence; as well as offers the tool of a protection order which is granted by a judge. Once it is violated, the police are by law required to act immediately after it has been reported.

However what the SA Medical Research Council found in its 2012 report (the latest report of its kind) on the assessment of investigations by the police into intimate partner violence was that there were no improvements in police investigations in such cases.

This demonstrates a worrying lack of knowledge on the part of the police on the prevalent dangers of Gender Based Violence and its overall impact on especially poor communities. It also, by extension, demonstrates a lack of regard for the plight of poor black women.

In addition, of the 6 million people living with HIV/Aids in South Africa, girls and women make up 56% of those infected. This is primarily attributed to the effect of “challenges like the lack of easy access to medication and early access to pre-natal care to prevent the cases of mother to child transmission of HIV.” (Status of South African Women and Girls in 2015, 2015c: 6) A notable issue related to economic participation is that in the agricultural sector, “women are responsible for up to 80% of food production,

60% of the harvesting, 80% of food storage and transport from fields to villages, 100% of the processing of basic foodstuffs, and 60% of marketing activities across the country and yet they rarely own the land or have tenure security over the land they are working on.” (2015c: 6) This is regardless of the implementation of policy-programmes such as the Land Redistribution Programme, the Land Tenure Programme, and the

Land Restitution Programme. Additionally, “women receive 7% of the agricultural extension services and less than 10% of the credit offered to small-scale farmers” even in light of their limited access to technological advancements to ease the labour-load.

(2015c: 7)

Moreover,

South Africa spends 6.4 % of its gross domestic product (GDP) on education

(considerably more than many other emerging market economies) but this

budget is all encompassing and does not have a specified percent set aside for

educating the girl child or women. So whatever gains in education of the girl

child and women are de facto. It is also not clear if or how women have been

involved in the pre-budget processes, or if women are involved in the monitoring

process of the use of money allocated towards their empowerment. (2015c: 7)

It is possible then, to conceive that there has persisted both an anti-black and anti- female culture throughout the various socio-political contexts in South Africa.

However, the question of whether the introduction and implementation of the above laws (or policies) have made meaningful material changes in the lives of black women has rightfully occupied many post democratic feminist discussions. For instance

Amanda Gouws (2010) argued that when the reforms allowed for equal representation of women in the Parliament of South Africa,

The organic feminism that characterized the transition phase and the link with

women's organisations were lost, and the focus shifted to institutional politics, law

reform and a discourse around gender rather than feminism. Women's

representation in government became a "numbers game" through the acceptance

of a women's quota[.] […] While committed feminists believed that more women in

government will put women's issues on the agenda, questions remain about the

success of quotas. Do they make a difference? (2010: 16)

The idea is that, beyond the introduction and implementation of policies that advance the lives of black women – what is commonly known as ‘gender mainstreaming’ – there ought to have been an added emphasis (either within or in addition to these policies) that speaks to (or in this case, against) the culture and attitudes of racialised patriarchy as they exist in the South African society. As Gouws puts it,

Gender mainstreaming7 is not successful because it has to be implemented in

organisational cultures that are deeply masculinised and hostile toward

women's interests. For the most part, gender mainstreaming in South Africa

7 “The scrutinisation and reinvention of processes of policy formulation and implementation across all issue areas to address and rectify gender disparities between men and women.” (Gouws, 2010: 16)

has become "tool kits" and "checklists" to make sure that gender is taken into

consideration inside institutions. […] The focus on gender emphasizes the

formal and technical dimensions of social change rather than feminist

transformation. (2010: 17)

Beyond gender mainstreaming, many of the institutions mentioned above have arguably failed in a number of their established mandates; this is because of poor monitoring and implementation systems that have left them vulnerable to mismanagement and corruption. The institutions are staffed with officials who lack the political urgency to mitigate the plight of South African black women, and who rather align their interests with the self-enrichment that has come to characterize the demise of most post democratic public institutions. For instance, in 2010 both the offices of the Public Protector and Auditor-General responded to complaints of fraud and maladministration against the Commission for Gender Equality and found irregularities in the Commission’s financials in addition to misgovernance8. There is therefore small wonder why the Commission has been found wanting in adequately fulfilling their duties in responding to the plight of women as prescribed by the Constitution.

The dysfunctional character that has marred these institutions in particular can be attributed in general to the lack of urgency that society takes to issues that affect black women, as well as the sexist and patriarchal behaviors of the male (and female!) politicians/policymakers that are in power. Gouws put the blame squarely at the

‘institutionalization of politics’, adding that it

Has led to the "missing link" or the absent relationship of women in government

with an authentic women's movement or gender-based networks. This absence

8 https://pmg.org.za/committee‐meeting/12411/

aggravates the lack of accountability in the State. The very tenuous link of

women in government with activist women's organisations makes it so much

harder for women's organisations to have allies in the State. As long as there

is no coherent women's movement to keep the State and femocrats

accountable, women in the State will get away with a lack of feminist praxis.

(2010: 18)

Seemingly then, the state of feminism in South Africa is caught between a worrying lack of political urgency (characterized by a lack of response) by the State (i.e. government and the corresponding institutions) and a misogynistic, male-entitled society that refuses to accept women as self-actualizing agents beyond the reproductive and subservient roles that they are expected to play. And since most of the said institutions and policies were introduced as responses to racialized patriarchy

(most policies speak to addressing the plight of ‘women in general, and African women in particular’ – my emphasis) – or the plight of mostly black women in rural settings – the state of black feminism in South Africa is constituted by the unwillingness to remedy the remnants of sexism and apartheid as they continue to define the lives of many black women in South Africa. Therefore in the quest to undo the legacy of apartheid, it seems that those who suffered especially through matrices of oppressions have been, in practice, left out of post-democratic corrective justice policies. This failure is the most notable in examining South Africa’s transition into democracy, since redress was (is) supposed to affect (positively) the most disadvantaged members of the society – those that experienced oppression by the system in a more ways than was common.

The ‘missing link’ between women in government and authentic women's movements that Gouws refers to in South Africa could not have found a better expression than

70 with the existence of the ANC Women’s League (hereafter ‘Women’s League’ and

‘League’) in its post-apartheid posture. The League’s participation in South African women’s gender politics has arguably followed the tradition of ‘ANC-first’, a stance that is notoriously similar to black liberation movements’ insistence to elevate blackness as the sole determinant of oppression while ignoring the additional oppressions that black women and other disadvantaged groups endure within blackness. One public incident that brought to the fore the challenging relationship between the League and adherence to authentic feminism is the latter’s response to the 2005/2006 rape trial by then Deputy President Jacob Zuma (notably before he was awarded with the highest seat in public office). Its impact was such that it generated greater discussions and participation by the various women’s organizations.

Without going into the legal details of the trial9, the courts ruled against the allegations put forward by the complainant and deemed the incident ‘consensual’. The acquittal made headlines and what followed was widespread criticism and notable threats towards the victim by the staunch Zuma supporters that visited the court every day of the trial in solidarity. Such was the voracity of the responses by Zuma’s supporters that the complainant was forced to flee the country under police guard, in addition to changing her name in a bid to protect herself against the death threats that had been levelled against her. However, it was the Women’s League’s notable support of Zuma that was to lay bare the League’s total disregard of the plight of rape victims in South

Africa, and by extension, the various societal ills that visit disadvantaged women in

South Africa on a daily basis. According to South African journalist and pan-African queer womanist Kagure Mugo (2016a)

9 See State vs. Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma at: http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZAGPHC/2006/45.pdf for full judgment.

[Speaking on the political activities that surrounded the rape trial] Mpumi

Mathabela, coordinator of the 1 in 9 Campaign, an organization tackling the issue

of sexual violence that was formed in solidarity with [the victim], this (that is, the

support – my emphasis) went a step further when women in ANCWL regalia called

her names and voiced opinions such as “she should feel lucky to have been raped

by such a handsome man.” […] When I spoke with Mathabela, she highlighted this

plight. "During a dialogue we hosted on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the

judgment we had women in the room who said that because Jacob Zuma told the

nation that he showered to avoid becoming infected with HIV, men began raping

us without condoms' with the men questioning 'why would the second most

powerful man in the country at the time lie?'" said Mathabela. "Women in the room

stated that Zuma’s acquittal had actually caused a surge in rapes in communities

as men became sure ‘the justice system was on their side.’" (Kagure Mugo 2016a)

Taken to be the highest custodian of women’s rights within the advancement of women’s lives, including the closest thing to a feminist movement that correctly arose as a response to the plight of black South African women, the League’s post- democratic posture has been the most significant political let-down to those whose lives require a political/feminist movement that centers their lived experiences. That there is a political vacuum in South Africa’s post democratic response to the plight of its female citizens is testament to the existence (or inexistence) of the Women’s

League. It was in their 2012 infamous public support of Zuma’s second term at presidency, after facing objections at their failure to endorse a female president, where its then President Angie Motshekga quelled any hope that the League had an apprehension of the need for an organization that represented the advancement of women’s rights. She asserted that “We are not a feminist organization. We are a

72 women’s organisation,” “The time is not yet ripe to have a woman to lead the ANC”,

“No one wants to go into a futile battle” and “We are just not prepared for [a woman leader] right now”. (Farieda Khan 2016b)

As I have discussed in the preceding sections, one can be excused for forgiving their stance as ‘not feminist’ given the universalism embedded in the politics of the history of feminism as a movement. But the assertion seems to assume that feminist organizations stand in opposition to ‘women’s organizations’; that feminism, whose primary objective is the struggle to end sexist oppression, could not be their mandate and therefore theirs is just a large meeting of conservative, seasoned women who wish to ensure the visibility of women in ‘important’ positions. And herein lies the greatest tragedy for the black women of South Africa: that arguably the largest female political movement (whose formation was a response to racialised patriarchy, and who is mostly constituted by women-who-look-like-them) has very little to no political grasp of the systematic oppression of women, and by extension, no grasp of the political urgency with which disadvantaged women require intervention.

The inadequacy of the League as well as all interventions from the state is further enabled by South Africa’s underlying culture(s) and custom(s). That is, that even with

South Africa’s ‘progressive’ Constitution, “there is a tension in the articulation of human rights - that of a universalizing rights regime of liberalism and the normative frameworks underpinned by the particularities of custom.” (2010: 22) The latter refers to the lived realities of black women under the traditional values (translated to ‘our culture’) that otherwise orchestrate their oppression (i.e. subordination in home, employment, and community). Moreover, “in this regard, culture is viewed as static and a compromise with universal human rights [is] not deemed possible.” (2010: 22)

Human rights, or in this instance women’s rights, are often disregarded and taken to

73 be products of Westernization through colonialism in the cultural sense of South

Africa’s values; and as I have previously discussed, the critiques of feminism’s origin as Western have their merits. But, as Gouws argues, the critiques can also be “thinly disguised conservatism to placate the unease of patriarchal nationalism, which uses

Westernism to attack African women's radicalism.” (2010: 22)

It seems then, that two overarching paradigms have been set up to respond to the plight of black women in post-democratic South Africa: policies and legal obligations in the name of redress and redistributive justice, as well as a ‘women’s organization’ in the form of the ANC Women’s League whose objective is the promotion of women’s rights. That is, the legal and political paradigms/responses. That both paradigms have failed in adequately responding to intersectional oppression and the various matrices of domination (i.e. culture/tradition) as they persist in society forces one to wholly relook the way black womanhood is perceived in South Africa. The vacuum left by both paradigms (in so far as they have failed to make material differences in the lives of black women) requires South Africa to adopt black feminism as a guiding principle.

This ought to begin with using our own history to determine how sexism played a role in colonialism and apartheid thereafter – as well as how these have filtered through to the democratic era – in addition to defining the type of distributive justice required to fill the vacuum (i.e. one that would ideally support the dismantling of dominant traditions that perpetuate South African black women’s oppression).

Another way in which history repeated itself to the continued detriment of black women is in the clear historical parallels between the roles women played in the struggle against apartheid and segregation, as well as those they played in what is now the most notable post-apartheid protest movement – namely the ‘Fees Must Fall’ movement. That is, the emphasis that even inside ‘movements’, black women are

74 systematically excluded and othered through socially prevailing attitudes about black women in society. But more than this, that Fees Must Fall with its monumental post- democratic political significance – a movement overtly developed through an intersectional lens – could not escape the pervasive nature of racialized patriarchy in

South Africa, further elaborated the need for a radical change in the South African culture. One that is an alternative to the intersecting culture of racism, sexism and classism as it exists in South Africa.

3.2. #FeesMustFall: A Case Study

Nevertheless, the relationship between the attainment of education and women’s advancement is clear. That is, issues of unequal pay and sexual harassment (as well as the various issues that plague women in the workplace or schooling environment) notwithstanding, black women are in a much better position of changing the outcomes of their lived realities through acquiring education (which opens doors to employment, thus improving material conditions etc.) However the South African Human Rights

Commission (2017) published a Research Brief on Gender and Equality in South

Africa which found that

On educational levels in South Africa, just over 1 million (1 023 000) women who

are Black aged 20 years and older answered that their education was ‘none’

compared to 528 000 Black men and just 8 000 White women. Overall, over 1

million women compared to 635 000 men have received no education.

Approximately 17 percent of Black women aged 15 years and over do not have an

education level over Grade 7, compared to almost 12 percent of Coloured women,

seven percent of Indian women and less than two percent of White women. (2017b:

18)

This is despite the various transformation quotas that have been placed in universities

in response to the plight of black women in attaining education. However, what the

quotas seem to have neglected to address is access to education through the

necessary resources that enable its attainment. For instance, how does government

intervene in women from rural areas accessing application and bursary forms to

universities? This would perhaps require visits to local internet cafes for those without

the necessary devices. What of the resources required for transportation to the internet

cafes? Printing costs? University fees for those without access to funding schemes?

If there was a notable South African post-apartheid movement that laid bare the plight

of black women in their roles in protest movements, their corresponding agency in the

fight for affordable and quality education, and by extension their perception in society,

it was the October 2015 FeesMustFall movement with all of its intricacies. Ojakorotu

Victor and Eesuola Olukayode Segun (2016c) said of student protests that they “often

involve male and female, and in its cycle come(s) some distinct yet inseparable

aspects such as planning, action, sustenance and retrieval.” (2016c: 7185)10

Furthermore when both the male and female groups partake in all these aspects, what

follows is the question of what this demonstration would distinctively mean for both

individual groups. That is, how is the experience of protest different for males and

females? And, more specific to the FeesMustFall movement whose mandate was

poor, mostly black students; how did the female protesters experience planning,

action, sustenance and retrieval in comparison to their male counterparts?

10 The authors employed quantitative method by means of a survey. The population is 100 South African universities students, 50 each in the University of Witwatersrand where the FeesMustFall protest originated, and the rest from the University of Johannesburg. 50 male and 50 female students were targeted for the study.

One notable point to the aforementioned query that Victor & Segun highlight in their research is that “[f]emale students [felt] elated to join their male counterparts in protest demonstration due to the drive of gender equality.” Moreover “male students [were more] involve[d] in planning but [were] more encouraged to continue the protest due to the presence of female students: their bodies attract them, and motivate their masculine ego.” (2016c: 7189) The implication here is that the presence of the female body in the context of protest represents a masculation-through-oppression. The oppressed female body in protest exists only through strengthening the political stance of the male; thus rendering their experience of protest (and largely the process of realizing the fruits of protest) merely for the benefit of elevating the shallow patriarchal interests of the male in protest. This process also implies that the legitimacy of the male students’ activism rests squarely on their wanting to grandstand for the female gaze; an irony that rests in the sexist nature of general protest action.

Additionally,

[w]omen, when they participate in politics, often motivate men through their

bodies and through psychological factors as men who see themselves as

superior will never wait to be counted out when women are in action. Women

therefore need to be given political roles for them (that is, the men – emphasis

mine) to follow up political actions. (2016c: 7189)

Another overarching aspect of the movement was the apparent domination of male students – both through participation and through the ideological stances that were said to have influenced the overall call for decolonization11. At the start of the movement, the general agreement amongst the protesting students was that the

11 If we understand the Fees Movement to be about more than just free education for poor students; but also free quality, decolonized, and intersectional (i.e. anti‐sexist and anti‐racist) education.

movement would be leaderless. If there were to be leaders, they agreed, they would

have to assume an identity that was intersectional. This was an attempt at steering

away from the norm of ‘black men leading from the front’. Thus Wits SRC presidents

Shaeera Khala and Nompendulo Mkatshwa had emerged as the two iconic leaders of

the movement. However it was the student march to Luthuli House that was to change

the course of this intersectional project.

A report by the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation12 on the different

modes the movement took throughout the various campuses notes that the inevitable

emergence of ‘male leaders’ was as a result of the men’s student res culture through

initiation. That is, that the assured emergence of Vuyani Pambo and Mcebo Dlamini

as the modern day liberation heroes (a la Nelson Mandela, Chris Hani and Oliver

Tambo) emanated from the patriarchal culture that already exists on the various

campuses. Still at Wits, one protesting student noted that

[y]ou see the active participants of the Men’s Hall of Residence, I think [they]

are the largest participant in this movement…They [are] inducted in a way that

a…female person is below you most of the times; they disagree to be led by a

woman. In the beginning of the year you are inducted that you are a Raider,

you lead Jubilee Female Res and Sunnyside and they are below you… that is

why women don’t find that sort of expression in this movement. (Individual

interview, protesting student, 2016) (Langa, 2016c: 141)

Another female activist lamented that

12 This report provides analyses from the various student leaders of the #FeesMustFall protests in nine universities: the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), University of Zululand, Rhodes University, University of Limpopo (Turfloop Campus), Tshwane University of Technology (TUT), University of Cape Town (UCT), University of KwaZuluNatal (UKZN) and the University of the Western Cape (UWC).

[t]he tasks that women were assigned, which were mostly gendered like

organizing food for the protesters and other related tasks, and the male leaders

would speak at the meetings and lead. (Individual interview, protesting student,

2016) (#Hashtag: An analysis of the #FeesMustFall Movement at South African

universities; Langa, 2016d: 141)

An appalling similarity with the above assertion is the (abovementioned) 1912 gathering of the ANC founding fathers who met in Bloemfontein to assist with the drafting of the ANC Constitution where the latter concluded that women would play a supplementary role through providing shelter and entertainment for the tireless struggle martyrs. The fact of these attitudes persisting through decades provides a necessary justification for forming a black female advancement strategy that centers intersectional identities over dominant racist-patriarchal identities.

At UKZN another phenomenon rose out of the FeesMustFall movement that also highlighted the peculiarity of police involvement. #RapeMustFall began when female students demonstrated the alleged rape of a female protestor by a police officer; the editor of the study notes that “[m]ost of the protesting students interviewed for this study stated that the allegations were true, citing that it was common for police to be brutal regardless of gender. However, interviews with management and campus law enforcement did not confirm or support the allegations.” (2016d: 91) Rhodes University also saw the demonstrations of sexual violence against protesting female students.

On 11 April 2016, the names of 11 individuals allegedly accused of rape were

circulated on social media. Following the publication of this list, which became

known as #RUReferencelist, a crowd of students gathered at the student centre

and marched to the male students’ residences with the intention of rounding up

the listed students. […] Protests were organised and classes were disrupted

during the course of the week. The protesting students demanded that the

university act against all the allegations of rape on campus. (2016d: 100)

In response, the Rhodes University Chancellor Dr. Sizwe Mabizela condemned the publishing of the list of the rape accused, citing a ‘violation of human rights’. The response to this gave rise to perhaps the most momentous post-1994 demonstration by young South African black women. After the university’s attempt to quell the protests by deploying police firing rubber bullets and stun grenades in addition to applying for a court interdict against the students which lead to the arrests of some; some few female protestors, by refusing to be silenced, performed a half-naked protest under the slogan ‘We will not be silenced!’. (2016d: 100)

Naked protests by women in the African contexts has historically been a symbol of collective protests by the society’s poor and marginalized women. The act of undressing in this manner has always meant to shame men, particularly abusive men, out of their sexist-patriarchal acts. It also demonstrates the result of when African women have been ‘pushed to the edge’ by controlling acts of sexist oppression. In

April 2016 the University of Makerere’s research fellow, Dr. Stella Nyanzi underwent a naked protest when she was locked out of her office and told to vacate by the

Makerere Institute for Social Research (MISR) director Prof Mahmood Mamdani for refusing to teach a PhD programme. She threw all of her clothing outside Mamdani’s office demanding she be granted access to her office.

By stripping down, the oppressed black woman is literally propelling her body to the racist-sexist society and its adherents in a bid to show contempt and in the most revolutionary of ways, spit in the eye of the very idea that their bodies (and by

80 extension, themselves) were not worthy of the shallow male gaze or the institutions that allow for this gaze to remain the dominant institutional gaze. Additionally, African women mostly used the act as a ‘curse’ to the men who dared violate them in any manner. The Rhodes female protestors literally bore their naked chests in solidarity with the female students who had allegedly been raped by fellow male students (and forced to share the campus with them even after the allegations).

Furthermore, that these cases are dominating recent narratives in the South African post-democratic era – and precisely that their nature has remained the same throughout the years even in light of the introductions of alleged progressive policies that aim to protect and promote the plight of women – calls for a radical overhaul of the prevailing ideas that often accompany black women. According to Amy Wilkins

(2012b),

“controlling images” inflict narrow cultural images on black women. Depicted as

matriarchs, mammies, welfare mothers, and jezebels, controlling images

portray black women as sexually other: either uncontrollably sexual or

abnormally asexual and emasculating. These images provide ideological

justification for persistent racial oppression by masking the structural

arrangements that maintain racial inequality, pinning responsibility instead on

black women's "failed" gender performance. (Wilkins, 2012b: 174)

Wilkins further asserts (and perhaps by extension, demonstrates the pervasiveness of black women’s plight through the fact of even the intersection of the controlling images under which they find themselves) that “when black women resist one controlling image, they activate another; for example, black women who do not act like mammies are seen as jezebels. Controlling images work together in such a way to make it

81 impossible for black women to occupy an "ordinary," namely, unmarked, social position.” (2012b: 175) Therefore, and more notably, “intersectionality does not just imply a unique identity constellation but can require social actors to achieve coherent identities in the face of incoherent identity expectations.” (2012b: 175)

Chapter Four: Recommendations and Conclusions – Towards a Founding

Document for a Black Feminist Society

4.1. Core issues

The abovementioned issues, and those that are raised throughout the minor dissertation, demonstrate the stagnated nature in which black women’s lives (both in the diaspora and in South Africa) have been approached whether politically or societally. Patriarchy, sexism, misogyny, and the socio-cultural factors that have allowed them (the three aforementioned) to persist have greatly undermined efforts to advance the material lives of women. But for black women; racism, and in most cases classism, have become corresponding factors that enable their further oppression. In

South Africa, succeeding statistics continue to show that black women – who are the highest demographic group – are the face of poverty, unemployment, and rampant inequality in the country. From these statistics, it is plausible to argue in line with the hooksian notion that South Africa’s racial-patriarchal society has led to black women bearing the brunt of society’s need to degrade, devalue, and eventually exclude women.

On the other hand; women such as Winnie Mandela, the women of Rhodes University who staged the half-naked protest in April 2016, Dr. Stella Nyanzi, my mother, and the countless black women in South Africa living in slums as the labor market continues to put bottlenecks on their livelihoods – yet continue to find ways to raise their children

– ought to be praised. Not for their tenacity in the face of impossible odds, but for displaying the truest attributes of black women: unwavering strength in the face of a dominant culture in addition to exceptional foresight – through either acts of defiance

(political/social) or the quiet revolution of single motherhood – into how an inclusive, equal, and intersectional society for South Africa ought to look (i.e. Black Feminism).

Nevertheless, the rise of the black feminist movement in the United States and in various other countries was as a response to the prevailing and global attitudes of black womanhood. Post-colonial and thus post-apartheid South Africa with its peculiar history especially insofar as the plight of black South African women, requires rigorous processes to be implemented to ensure full inclusion and general improvement in their socio-economic well-being. This is one that would resemble the total overhaul of politics, language, social conditioning, knowledge, and economics from the racist- classist-sexist (as we know it) paradigm that have assisted in diminishing black women’s roles into the abyss. This process would go beyond the Rawlsian theory of distributive justice whose concern was to compensate those who are the least fortunate. It would also encompass a radical reeducation of society of the importance of dismantling the racist-patriarchal culture; that a society that fails to address the plight of its least advantaged members in society will inevitably drive it to its doom.

The South African government ought to do away with gender mainstreaming and rather adopt a black feminist praxis in the way in which they respond to issues pertaining to black women. Gouws defines a feminist praxis as “the internalisation of feminist theoretical principles to the extent that these principles are used to turn spaces into feminist spaces.” (2010: 14) This is not to be mistaken with merely employing more women to key areas (although this would be ideal as far as ensuring more women are employed thereby ensuring an income to assist with basic needs) since, most women “often express internalised male norms of competition and hierarchical thinking, through which they may exclude or even psychologically damage

84 other women13.” (2010: 15) Rather, the government would do well to place already existing feminist activists with concrete experience from working at grassroots levels in positions where programmes dealing with black women’s advancement are being coordinated.

Instead, what has happened, as Gouws describes, is that “the spaces for feminist activism […] have shrunk dramatically since 1994 when institutional politics replaced activism.” (2010: 15) Therefore, the internalization of black feminist theoretical principles would resemble “revolutioniz[ing] rather than reform[ing] existing power structures, hoping to go to the root, to nurture and grow structural change that alleviates and diminishes oppressive conditions.” (1999a: 6) Structural change therefore requires the radical overhauling and dismantling of previous paradigms (and their corresponding institutions), particularly those that proved to disrupt social cohesion and the attainment of inclusive rights. For instance, the social conditioning of racialized patriarchy and sexism, which has largely given rise to the various social ills that plague black women in South Africa, ought to be turned on its head and replaced with a politic that encompasses (and rightly addresses) the advancement of black women’s lives. This includes freedom of agency (be it political, sexual, economic etc.), freedom from violence and denigration (sexual, physical, and otherwise) and overall freedom from the inextricably bound matrices of oppression as experienced by black women in South Africa. In short, “we need to return to a feminist praxis that will politicise and radicalise [black] feminist activism.” (2010: 22)

Additionally, Joy James said of government institutions that they “[have] the power to extinguish a radical movement; on the other hand, [they] can modify and absorb that

13 i.e. “Patriarchal women”.

movement into the mainstream, so that it no longer functions as resistance to official

politics.” (1999a: 6) If the government of South Africa adopted a black feminist praxis

as its “Founding Document for an Equal Society”14, recognizing it as a politic whose

radical singularity finds a healthy alternative to anti-black sexism (a new social order);

in addition to recognizing and thus promoting the notion of intersectionality as a

healthy alternative to liberal heteronormative standards of human life, South Africa

would realize its true potential of an antisexist and antiracist country. Moreover,

“despite the institutional force and pervasive presence of state and corporate policies,

black feminist activism, like other insurgent action, reveals in its organizing and

analyses its own peculiar power.” (1999a: 6) Which is, the aim to eradicate

intersectional oppression – and not merely isolate singular experiences of oppression.

In conclusion, the minor dissertation served to provide a summation of the response

to the question of whether there is a need for black feminism in South Africa. It has

provided a framework that explains the need for a black feminist politic by

demonstrating various socio-political vacuums in the lived realities of South African

black women. I have argued and demonstrate throughout the minor dissertation that

the need for black feminism in South Africa is proven in various facets of society

through systematic racism and sexism that intersect to form a multifold character of

oppression for the black women in its society. Moreover that black feminism, and as

an extension intersectionality, provides a radical and thus healthy alternative to racism,

classism, sexism, and all other forms of oppression.

One notable issue that may warrant extensive discussion is the perceived attitudes of

especially black men towards black women. This is due to black men refusing to

14 (Emphasis mine) – a potential preamble to a legally binding document that could assist in promoting socio‐ economic equality in the lives of black South African women.

confront their blackness15 first as an experience whose nature lends to other identities

(shared-through-blackness), and secondly due to the colonialism-cum-apartheid effect

on the black family unit16. That is, that black human beings who do not fall under the

heteronormative umbrella of “man” i.e. black women17 (in addition to homosexual

people) have often had to bear the brunt of the toxic black masculinity that has

culminated from black man’s inability to resolve the pain that came with oppression.18

Another matter is that of the role of existing women’s liberation movements in

perpetuating the scourge of sexism in South Africa. The then President of the ANC

Women’s League (ANCWL) Angie Motshega is on record as stating that the League

did not ascribe to feminism (which, perhaps to their defense, could have meant they

did not ascribe to it in so far as it is a concept emanating from the West). The concern,

however, is that the League does not clearly ascribe to feminist principles as, I argue,

universal codes of conduct that are aligned to the equality of the sexes. This is most

evident in their various public failures in addressing women’s issues concretely.

Nevertheless, although I have attempted to highlight the notable achievements in the

form of policies and programmes in the advancement of women; the institutional

failures have cast a cloud on the achievements as is evidenced in women’s lived

experiences (from the failure of recognition during the years in activism; failure to

promote development in the democratic paradigm; and failure to successfully

dismantle the institutional structures that allow for these failures to persist).

15 As it intersects with the various privileges that come with masculinity. 16 Apartheid spatial planning was the condition wherein black people were prohibited from mainly productive land use, forcing them in their majority to share the remaining limited space under the Group Areas Act of 1950. 17 For the purpose of this study. 18 As opposed to “taking it like a man” so to speak.

Therefore, black feminism, with its peculiar intervening power, is the only structural replacement (to the status quo) whose objective is to recognize the importance of dismantling the intersectional racist-patriarchal system we find ourselves, to drive forward the values of a truly constitutional and democratic country.

[23 332 words]

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