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Women in Twentieth Century South African Politics

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Women in Twentieth Century South African Politics WOMEN IN TWENTIETH CENTURY SOUTH AFRICAN POLITICS: WOMEN IN TWENTIETH CENTURY SOUTH AFRICAN POLITICS: THE FEDERATION OF SOUTH AFRICAN WOMEN, ITS ROOTS, GROWTH AND DECLINE A thesis submitted for the Degree of Master of Arts at the University of Cape Town October 1978 C.J. WALKER ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express my appreciation to my supervisor, Robin Hallett, and to those friends who helped and encouraged me in numerous different ways. I also wish to acknowledge the financial assistance I received from the following sources, which made the writing of this thesis possible: Human Sciences Research Council Harry Crossley Scholarship Fund H.B. Webb Gijt. Scholarship Fund University of Cape Town Council. The views expressed in this thesis are those of the author alone. CONTENTS List of Abbreviations used in text Introduction CHAPTER 1 : The Position of Women, 1921-1954 CHAPTER 2 : The Roots of the FSAW, 1910-1939 CHAPTER 3 : The Roots of the FSAW, 1939-1954 CHAPTER 4 : The Establishment of the FSAW CHAPTER 5 : The Federation of South African Women, 1954-1963 CHAPTER 6 : The FSAW, 1954-1963: Structure and Strategy CHAPTER 7 : Relationships with the Congress Alliance: The Women's Movement and National Liberation CHAPTER 8 : Conclusion APPENDICES BIBI,!OGRAPHY iv V 1 53 101 165 200 269 320 343 349 354 ABBREVIATIONS USED IN TEXT AAC AllAfricanConvention AME American Methodist Episcopal (Church) ANC African National Congress ANCWL African National Congress Women's League APO African People's Organisation COD CongressofDemocrats CPSA Communist Party of South Africa CYL CongressYouthLeague ICU Industrialand Commercial Workers' Union NCAW National Council of African Women NCW National CouncilofWomen NEC National Executive Committee NEUM Non-European Unity Movement NCC National Consultative Committee NIC Natal Indian Congress NLL National LiberationLeague PAC Pan-African Congress SACPO South African Coloured People's Organisation SAIC South African Indian Congress SACTU South African Congress of Trade Unions SAP South African Party TCC Transvaal Consultative Committee TIC Transvaal Indian Congress WEAU Women's Enfranchisement Association of the Union WIDF Women's International Democratic Federation INTRODUCTI ON "Strijdom, you have tampered with the women: you have struck a rock" - Women's protest song (1956) In the history of opposition to white supremacist rule in South Africa, the 1950's stand out as a period of intensive legal resistance by black political bodies on an unprecedented mass scale. Undoubtedly, for all its weaknesses and difficulties, the Congress Alliance, with the African National Congress its senior partner, was the major source of opposition faced by the apartheid state in this period. More than is generally realised, however, the 1.950's were also a decade of mass political action by black women in South Africa, that section of the population which a 1956 pamphlet aptly described as "the most oppressed, suffering and downI trodden of our people". At the centre of this outburst lay the Federation of South African Women (FSAW), an organisation that was linked to the Congress Alliance. It is the history of this organisation that forms the subject matter of this thesis. Little historical work has been done on women in South Africa, politically or otherwise: for this reason, the scope of this study is broad and, in addition to material on the history and make-up of the FSAW itself, several chapters have been devoted to background developments to the establishment of the FSAW in 1954. Here what has been concentrated upon has been, firstly, the economic changes restructuring the foundations on which women's subordinate position in 20th Century South Africa rested, 1. FSAW: 'Strijdom ... You have struck a rock', pamphlet, p.l. and, secondly, the origins and growth of a political consciousness amongst women within the national liberation movement before 19541. Because of the vast amount of material covered, the treatment of these topics is necessarily that of an overview, rather than an in-depth study. Hopefully it will suggest areas for further and more detailed research by other historians. This thesis has been written from the perspective that the varied and changing historical experience of women has been unjustifiably neglected by historians, both here and, up until very recently, elsewhere2. The study of history needs to be broadened to incorporate the female world as a legitimate area of research. Such a step will deepen our understanding not only of the position of women - 50 percent of the population - but of the workings of the total society at any one time as well. This does not mean that one can delineate a 'women's history' that forms a separate study from the history of society in general. Women do not form an isolated and homogeneous category that can be studied apart from society as a whole, any more than men do. Just as women need to be drawn into a more equal participation in the economic, social and political institutions of our society, so, too, 'women's history' needs to be integrated into our general histories. Yet at the same time, since women have, by and large, been by-passed by historians and since, moreover, their position in society has been stamped with its own, distinctive features, there is a place for detailed and specialised studies on women, their organisations and the sweep of their experience in these social spheres in which they have been active. 1. The use End meaning of this term, "national liberation movement" is explained below, p. 1. 2. For a collection of writings on the subject of women and the writing of history, see B.A. Carroll (ed.): Liberating Women's Historv. VL1 The reasons why women have beer, overlooked by South African historians refleict on the subordinate position that they have occupied in society, both historically and currently. Partly, this neglect has been a product of most historians' preoccupation with political and constitutional, rather than social, history. Given their subordinate status within society, as well as their primarily domestic preoccupations, women have generally been excluded from the institutions of political power and, as a result, excluded from much orthodox historiography as well. Partly, however, the neglect of women has been a product of historians' own, often unconscious, bias against women, in itself a product of the very social attitudes that reinforce and perpetuate women's subordinate position within the larger society. This bias has meant that for rm.any historians - female as well as male - women have been, historically, invisible. Either their experiences and activities have not been considered sufficiently important an area of research,or else the presence of women at particular historical jurntures has simply not 1 been noticed Even when women have been politically active, as in the case of the FSAW, for instance, their efforts have generally been ignored or overlooked by researchers when it comes to the writing of history. The anti-pass protests of African women in South Africa in the 1950's (in which the FSAW played a prominent part) were probably the most successful and militant of any resistance campaign mounted at that time. They were also an indication of the degree to which black women of the 1950's were throwing off both traditional and more modern, governmental restraints on their independence and assertiveness. Yet in one of the major general. histories of black opposition in South Africa for this time, E. Roux's 1. For a discussion on this notion of the "invisibility" of women,as well as an example of this in operation in Colonial Africa, see J. van Allen: 'Aba riots or the Igbo Women'<- Wai.?' - Ideology, stratification and the invisibility of women' in Ufahamu, Vol. 6, No. 1, 1975. viii study, Time Longer than Rope, the women's anti-pass campaign warrants barely a mention. Roux does not record the foundation of the FSAW in 1954. Even more remarkable, his year-by-year synopsis of major political events with which he concludes his history, does not include the monster antipass demonstration by women which took place in Atigust 1956, outside the Union Buildings, Pretoria. This demonstration, which brought together a crowd of women estimated variably at between ten and twenty thousand, from all over the country, was a political highpoint of 1956, not only for the women who took part but for the entire Congress Alliance. Nevertheless, it is not featured in Roux's chronology - an omission which, though glaring, is not altogether surprising. Because women have been such a neglected area of study, there is thus a dearth of secondary sources dealing with them, of relevance to this thesis. Much of the primary material., too, particularly the official records (government reports and commissions, etc.), treats women very cursorily. Often the information on women is of a negative kind - in many reports women are simply not mentioned at all, from which one can deduce that they were probably not of much interest to the compilers of the reports. The documentation of the FSAW itself is uneven. The existing and very useful collection of FSAW papers, housed in the archives of the South African Institute of Race Relations in Johannesburg, consists mostly of papers belonging to the Transvaal region and the National Executive Committee once that was based in Johannesburg, after 1956. The Cape Town papers have not been traced and no record of FSAW activities in the Durban and Port Elizabeth regions appear to exist. From one point of view, the lack of other historical studies on women makes this a very exciting and rich field in which to work. From another, however, it also adds to the difficulties and demands of one's own research. These are compounded by the general dearth of secondary material on the Congrcss Alliance in the 1950's as well.
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