Women and the Remaking of Politics in Southern Africa

Geisler.book Page 1 Wednesday, July 7, 2004 3:46 PM Women and the Remaking of Politics in Southern Africa Negotiating Autonomy, Incorporation and Representation Gisela Geisler NORDISKA AFRIKAINSTITUTET 2004 Geisler.book Page 2 Wednesday, July 7, 2004 3:46 PM Indexing terms Gender equality Liberation Political participation Women’s organisations Women’s participation Southern Africa Cover photo: Jørn Stjerneklar/PHOENIX ANC supporters at an election meeting ten days before the first free elections in South Africa. Language checking: Elaine Almén Index: Margaret Binns © The author and Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 2004 ISBN 91-7106-515-6 Printed in Spain by Grafilur Artes Gráficas, 2004 Geisler.book Page 3 Wednesday, July 7, 2004 3:46 PM Contents Acknowledgements . 7 Introduction . 9 CHAPTER 1 African Women in/and Politics Issues and Realities . 17 CHAPTER 2 Women’s Participation in Nationalist Movements and Liberation Struggles Fighting Men’s Wars . 39 CHAPTER 3 Asserting Women’s Liberation within National Liberation The Case of the South African Women’s Movement. 64 CHAPTER 4 The Women’s League Syndrome A Non-Decision-Making Machinery . 88 CHAPTER 5 Ambitious but Marginalised Women’s Desks and Ministries . 117 CHAPTER 6 Women’s Organisations and Movements Sometimes Autonomy but Often No Unity. 143 CHAPTER 7 Struggling on All Fronts Women Politicians. 173 Conclusion . 206 Persons Interviewed . 217 References . 221 Abbreviations . 234 Index. 236 Geisler.book Page 4 Wednesday, July 7, 2004 3:46 PM Geisler.book Page 5 Wednesday, July 7, 2004 3:46 PM I never wanted to be a senator, because I did not know what a senator is in the first place… When I go back to my small place in Mpumalanga I make a point of going to the school where I used to teach. And people there were saying: “Oh, you have not changed. Why do you not have a Porsche car?” And I answered: “No, I do not need a Porsche car. You, the community, are my Porsche car!” I like public transport because I like to travel with other people and to listen to what is happening. Thembeka Gamndama, Senator, Cape Town 21 March 1996. Geisler.book Page 6 Wednesday, July 7, 2004 3:46 PM Geisler.book Page 7 Wednesday, July 7, 2004 3:46 PM Acknowledgements This book is the product of the contributions of many people in Southern Africa and beyond over the last twenty years. I hereby wish to express my gratitude to all of them. It all started in Zambia in the 1980s. My interest in women’s role in politics was awakened while I lived in Lusaka, being confronted daily with government controlled newspaper reports that in turn praised women “marketers” as loyal party supporters and blamed them and young professional women for the country’s economic and social problems. The often ridiculous daily avalanche of news partly amused and partly concerned readers. I would like to thank Ken Good for initiating me into “serious” newspaper reading and clipping in Zam- bia, and into using the information, however scurrilous it seemed, as research material, an art that he excels in. My collection of Zambian newspaper clippings from the 1980s constitutes the central basis of this book. Another friend who deserves my sincere gratitude and thanks is Arne Tostensen, former director of the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Bergen, who encouraged me to turn my collection of clippings into a major research project into women and politics in Southern Africa. Arne offered me seed money for an explorative trip to Southern Africa and time to elaborate proposals for funding at a time when women and politics was still a not so fashionable research area. Beyond these two fathers, this book ows its existence to many, many moth- ers and sisters. I wish to thank all the women politicians, all the gender activists, all the women members of women’s organisations and movements who kindly made themselves available to me, for their time, enthusiasm and patience. I wish to thank all the women with busy schedules who explained, confided in and discussed with me the matters that concerned them and me. In particular I wish to thank Jenny Schreiner for sharing with me her insights into the personal drama of entering parliament and Thendiwe Mtinso for talking into the evening about the continuing struggle that parliament represented to her. Mary Turok gave me on two occasions valuable inside views into the ups and downs of parliamentary life and sisterhood. I also wish to thank Thembeka Gamndama for talking from the heart about the loneliness involved in turning from a small town teacher into a Cape Town senator. I wish to thank Sylvia Masebo for letting me get to know her energetic self; Edith Nawakwi for her openness and the very bumpy ride in her car; Mama Kankassa and Bernadette Sikanika for being themselves and letting me finally respect them; and Dorcas Magang for not being shy to call a spade a spade. I would also like to thank Margaret Dongo for inspiring with her courage and dedication and for being fearless in her pursuit of her vision of the better society which led her, as a young woman, into the struggle for independence as a combatant. 7 Geisler.book Page 8 Wednesday, July 7, 2004 3:46 PM I would also like to thank all the women politicians who never made it into office, and who shared their upsets and frustrations with me, privileged information that in many cases was never made public. I thank those who made it and still shared their critical views, and those who made it, liked where they were and told me so, and all the women politicians, activists and civil servants even in countries which are not the subject of this book, whom I met in other contexts then and since and with whom I discussed politics as an aside. Even if they are not mentioned specifically their views also helped shape the book. Members of the women’s movement and gender activists who contributed to the book are too numerous to mention and those who are formally acknowl- edged as interviewees are but a small fraction of those I talked to, discussed with, picked up old debates with, asked to recall what happened then and tried my own insights out on. They are old friends, colleagues and new friends, sisters all, who hopefully will remain sisters after they read this book. I particularly wish to thank Sarah Longwe, Gladys Mutukwa, Attaliah Molekomme, Elsie Alexander, Ruth Meena and so many others for having remained friends for so long. I also wish here to acknowledge the work of scholars who have written about women and politics in Africa, some of whom I have discussed with, others I will hopefully meet in the future. Particular thanks to Jane Parpart and Kathleen Staudt for guiding me through much of the 1990s and to Aili Mari Tripp for being on the cutting edge by organising a roundtable on women and politics during an African Studies Association meeting in the mid-1990s. I also like to thank all the journalists, male and female, who wrote about women in politics and women and politics, for whatever reasons, and for thus creating a historical record. Bill Freund at the University of Natal in Durban, South Africa was one of the few who read the entire draft of the book. Thank you for spending the time on it and encouraging me when initially I could not find a publisher. Almost at the end of this long list I wish to acknowledge the generous funding of the Norwegian Research Council which enabled me to do the research, and Den norske Bank’s Jubileumsfond which enabled me to spend time writing the book. Without the interest and patience Gunnar Sørbø and the Board of Chr. Michelsen Institute showed towards the conclusion of this project it might not have come to pass, after all. I dedicate the book to the two most important women in my life, my mother Gertrud Geisler and my daughter, Clara Good. Bergen, March 2004 Gisela Geisler 8 Geisler.book Page 9 Wednesday, July 7, 2004 3:46 PM Introduction The participation of women in national decision-making has been growing in many countries throughout the 1990s. At the beginning of the decade Anne Phillips described women’s participation in national parliaments outside Scan- dinavia as ranging between 2 and 10 per cent (Phillips 1991:60). In 1999 the per-centage range had increased to figures of between 1 and 36 per cent, closing the gap to the Nordic countries, where percentages stood at between 36.4 and 42.7 per cent. Amongst regional averages only the Arab states fell under the 10 per cent benchmark of 1990 (3.6 per cent) (Inter-Parliamentary Union 1999). In Africa, were women were said to have opted out of politics throughout the 1980s and patriarchal power structures were found to be hostile towards the entry of women into politics, they managed to force their way into the almost exclusively male domain with amazing speed and determination. In 1987 on average only 7.1 per cent of representatives in parliaments in sub-Saharan Africa were women, and in no country did the number of ministerial positions reach more then 4, with 60 per cent of all countries having no women ministers (United Nations 1991:39–40). Just over ten years later, in 1999, the figure for parliamentary representation of women had risen in sub-Saharan African countries to an average of 11.5 per cent. Out of the 23 countries world-wide with women representations of 20 per cent or more, four were African, all of them located in Southern Africa (Inter-Parliamentary Union 1999).

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