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Religion, Culture and Gender: a Study of Women's Search for Gender Equality in Swaziland

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Religion, Culture and Gender: a Study of Women's Search for Gender Equality in Swaziland RELIGION, CULTURE AND GENDER: A STUDY OF WOMEN'S SEARCH FOR GENDER EQUALITY IN SWAZILAND CHRISTOPHER AMHERST BYUMA ZIGIRA NOVEMBER 2000 RELIGION, CULTURE AND GENDER: A STUDY OF WOMEN'S SEARCH FOR GENDER EQUALITY IN SWAZILAND by CHRISTOPHER AMHERST BYUMA ZIGIRA Submitted in Accordance with the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY In the Subject RELIGIOUS STUDIES At the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA PROMOTER : PROF. G. J. A. LUBBE JOINT PROMOTER: PROF. A. M. KANDUZA NOVEMBER 2000 DECLARATION Student Number: 3250-210-9 I declare that RELIGION, CULTURE AND GENDER: A STUDY OF WOMEN'S SEARCH FOR GENDER EQUALITY IN SWAZILAND is my own work and that all the sources that I have used or quoted have been indicated and acknowledged by means of complete references. DATE: ............................. C.A.B. ZIGIRA 305.42096887 ZIGI \\\\\~I ~\\I\\~\~\\\\\\ 11\1 Ill II~\\\ 0001787666 11 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This study has taken fairly a long time to accomplish and has had to change direction once. Initially, I had intended to examine the status of Christian Marriage in Swaziland. Due to some unforeseen circumstances, the topic was dropped in favour of a more all embracing topic of religion, culture and gender in Swaziland. During this sojourn a number of people helped me to concretise the proposal, most especially Prof. Takatso Mofokeng, then of University of South Africa. While I was eager to benefit from his scholarly advice, he changed places to join the University of the North West on a new assignment. Due to the fact that I neither speak nor write the siSwati language, a number of undergraduate students in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Swaziland were willing to help. These include Gugu Zikalala, June Nyanda, Lydia Vilakati, Patience Nkonyane and Gugu Dlamini. They were particularly invaluable in carrying out the survey on Swazi women's perception of gender relations. To all of them, I wish to express my thanks, they represent a hardworking, selfless group of students who had their gender perspective changed as we trod along. I greatly value the work of my promoters, namely Prof. Gerrie Lubbe of the University of South Africa and Prof. Ackson Kanduza of the University of Swaziland. Their timeous intellectual guidance, incisive and constructive criticism, and invaluable comments helped me to gain a more nuanced understanding of the topic. They both provided thought-provoking comments which, though they kept me on my toes, propelled me into action even when my working morale was low. To these academic influences, in diverse areas, I express my heartfelt gratitude. 111 A number of colleagues have also shown interest in this work and were sources of added encouragement. I particularly would like to thank Dr Grace Peter of the Department of Geography, University of Swaziland, who spared time to guide me through the proposal stage. I would also like to express thanks to Dr Hendrik Kockaert, Dr Nicholas H. Taylor and Prof W. D. Kamera who kept reminding me of the serious nature of the work and the need to have it completed soon, although I may have been somewhat slower than they would have wished. I would also like to thank the staff of the University of Swaziland Library who willingly kept me informed of any new literature on women and religion that came into the library. Although, the relevant literature was far apart, the staff arranged for me to get a number of titles through the Inter-library loan service. It is in this connection that Ms Mary-Lynn Suttie, of the University of South Africa Library, was most useful. Being a subject librarian for History, Politics and Theology, Research Division, M-L. Suttie used her vast experience and cyberspace technology to identify relevant articles and titles that have proved a rich source of information. I wish to thank her for the specialised work she has done to make the journey navigable. I also would like to thank Wim van Binsbergen, from Holland, an anthropologist, who willingly supplied me with an extensive reading list. Dr Clara Tsabedze of the Department of English, University of Swaziland, kindly offered her services as a proof reader and made useful comments. I am grateful to her for her proof reading skills. And for the processing of this work, I owe gratitude to Pamela Msibi of the Faculty of Education, University of Swaziland, who painstakingly processed the manuscript to its present form. lV My acknowledgements would be incomplete without paying special thanks to my family for the emotional and moral support they provided. That I have had to depend entirely on my own resources to finance the research and university fees has ostensibly meant that the family budget was constrained in several ways. In spite of these constraints, however, my family showed understanding and collective support. I therefore wish to express my sincere thanks to my wife, Joy, and the children, Asaba, Frank, Ambrose and Barry, without whose understanding and sacrifice, I would not have successfully persevered. v RELIGION, CULTURE AND GENDER: A STUDY OF WOMEN'S SEARCH FOR GENDER EQUALITY IN SWAZILAND by C. A. B. Zigira Degree Doctor of Literature and Philosophy Subject Religious Studies Promoter Prof. G. J. A. Lubbe Joint Promoter Prof. A.M. Kanduza SUMMARY Although Swazi women's contribution to national development has been phenomenal, they like any other women in patriarchal societies confront an overbearing situation in which they have been regarded and treated as minors, both in the family and most spheres of public life. This has largely been due to the social construction of gender. Traditional gender-based attitudes, deeply ingrained in the people's mind set, not infrequently, have limited women's access to and control of various aspects of public life, and impinge on their rights, most especially the rights to self­ determination and equal participation in the decision making process. Coupled with religion which influences "the deepest level of what it means to be human" (King, 1994:4) and zealous cultural conservatism, the Swazi women, with a few notable exceptions, experience an asymmetry of power due to the pervasive nature of gender. Nonetheless, the history of Swaziland bears Vl testimony, however muted, to a legacy ofwomen's struggles to overcome gendered conditions imposed upon them either by taking full advantage of their spiritual endowment and charisma to overcome attitudinal barriers or by organising themselves into groups to work for the social transformation of their conditions and status. This study examines the Swazi women's search for gender equality. It discusses the social and cultural context of gender in Swaziland, the various moments in the Swazi women's quest for equality and its manifestations, and the push and pull effect of religion and culture. Particular attention is given to four organisations, namely Lutsango lwakaNgwane (loosely referred to as women's regiments), the Council of Swaziland Churches, the Women's Resource Centre (Umtapo waBomake) and Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse (SWAGAA). The study shows that Swazi women have, across a passage of time, adopted different strategies, including ritual, economic empowerment and creation of new knowledge through promotion of gender awareness and social advocacy either in a womanist approach that accepts women's embeddedness in Swazi culture or in the liberal feminist tradition that espouses women's individual rights. However, the study shows that the women's movement has yet to reach the critical mass level so as to influence public policy and come to terms with the deconstruction of the dominant gender ideology. Key Words Religion and gender; Women and religion; Women and ritual; Women's economic empowerment; Women's rights; social reproduction; Gender equality; Social advocacy; Gender awareness; Swazi women; culture; religion. Vll CURRICULUM VITAE NAME: CHRISTOPHER A. B. ZIGIRA I was born in Uganda, in 1948, and I attended Rutaka and Gitovu primary schools (1957-1962), and Seseme Junior Secondary School (1963-64). From 1965 to 1968, I attended a teacher training course at Bishop Stuart College. On completion of the course, I served as a teacher, in Uganda, until 1972 when I went for further training at Gab a Teachers' College ( 1972-73). I was posted to Mutolere School where I worked until1975 when I joined Makerere University for a bachelors degree in Arts (BA) and a Diploma in Education (1975-78). On graduation, I was appointed a Graduate Fell ow in the department of Religious Studies at the same institution. In 1980, I obtained a scholarship, under the auspices of the World Council of Churches, to pursue a masters degree in theology at the Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Seoul, Korea. On completing the course, I was appointed lecturer, at Makerere University, in 1982. In 1989, I was admitted to the Institute of Education, University of London, for an M. A in Rights and Education. On return from Britain, I resumed lecturing in Religious Studies and offered a wide range of courses, including Christian Ethics, African Traditional Religions, Church History and World Religions. Besides teaching, I held a number of responsibilities. Among others, I was a chairman of the Faculty Research Committee, the editor ofthe Makerere Occasional Research Papers on religion, the Secretary to the Faculty of Arts Board of Affiliated Theological Institutions (for Diploma in Theology and B. D programmes), and was co-founder and coordinator of the Islamics Graduate Induction Programme which was funded by the Muslim World League. Vlll To further extend my teaching experience and research interests, beyond the East African region, I joined the department ofTheology and Religious Studies, University of Swaziland, where I have served as a lecturer since July 1991. Besides teaching, I have undertaken research on gender and theological education, and have published a variety of scholarly articles, an introductory textbook on the Old Testament, and several distance education modules for the University of Swaziland, Institute of Distance Education.
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