South Africa

Citation:

Hemson, David. 2002. “‘Women Are Weak When They Are Amongst Men’: Women’s Participation in Rural Water Committees in South Africa.” Agenda: Empowering Women For Gender Equity 52: 24–32.

Author: David Hemson

Annotation:

In this article, Hemson uses existing quantitative studies on water development projects in South Africa to formulate a series of conclusions on the potential for water management to function as a mechanism for the empowerment of women. He argues that one of the primary reasons for the failure of some water projects is the exclusion of women from leadership roles and meaningful participation (despite the fact that it is women’s lives that are most directly affected by changes in water policy). When women are included in these committees, they are often present as a token of gender inclusion (to comply with new government requirements), they are never given substantive leadership roles, and they rarely verbally participate. Even in communities where prevalent male migration has given women greater decision-making responsibilities, there is a tendency towards “deferred participation,” meaning that women postpone decision-making out of psychological deference to the absent male. Hemson concludes with a series of recommendations for improving women’s participation in water management, including provision of / access to adult education, gender-sensitivity training, and technical training.

Quotes:

“This [the transformation of water provision into a public and political issue] has produced a marked divergence between domestic responsibilities and the public administration of water. While women have responsibility for family health and access to water, both menial and domestic issues, water projects are prestigious and public; this has led to the domination by men who feel most capable in this sphere.Thus women remain responsible for domestic water supply but without the power to ensure that delivery is effective and continuous.” (30)

Topics: Civil Society, Development, Gender, Women, Gender Roles, Infrastructure, Water & Sanitation Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 2002

Citation:

Hassim, Shireen. 2009. “After Apartheid: Consensus, Contention, and Gender in South Africa’s Public Sphere.” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 22 (4): 453–64. doi:10.1007/s 10767-009-9076-6.

Author: Shireen Hassim

Abstract:

Keywords: South Africa, public sphere, xenophobia, violence, sexuality, Gender

Topics: Democracy / Democratization, Economies, Economic Inequality, Poverty, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Governance, Constitutions, Post-Conflict Governance, LGBTQ, Peacebuilding, Post-Conflict, Race, Sexual Violence Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 2009

Citation:

Schwarzer, Beatrix. 2009. “Discourses on Race and Gender in South Africa’s Transitional Process: A Challenging Liaison.” In Gendering Global Transformations: Gender, Culture, Race and Identity, edited by Chima J. Korieh and Philomina Okeke-Ihejirika, 220-36. New York: Routledge.

Author: Beatrix Schwarzer

Topics: Gender, Women, Race Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 2009

Citation:

Cock, Jacklyn. 1989. “Keeping the Fires Burning: Militarization and the Politics of Gender in South Africa.” Review of African Political Economy 16 (45-46): 50-64.

Author: Jacklyn Cock

Abstract:

This article focuses on the connection between women and militarisation. It is a connection which is obscured by analyses which conceptualise war as a male affair and the military as a patriarchal institution from which women are excluded and by whom they are often victimised. White women contribute to the militarisation of South African society in both material and ideological terms. At the same time a minority of white women are a source of resistance to the system of apartheid which militarism defends. The ‘politics of gender,' the power relations between men and women which are structured around opposing notions of ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity,' shape both these processes of incorporation and challenge.

Topics: Gender, Women, Masculinity/ies, Femininity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarization Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 1989

Citation:

Miller, Kim. 2009. “Moms with Guns: Women’s Political Agency in Anti-Apartheid Visual Culture.” African Arts 42 (2): 68–75.

Author: Kim Miller

Topics: Gender, Women, Political Participation Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 2009

Citation:

Naraghi-Anderlini, Sanam, and Camille Pampell Conaway. 2004. Negotiating the Transition to Democracy and Reforming the Security Sector: The Vital Contributions of South African Women. Washington, DC: Institute for Inclusive Security.

Authors: Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini, Camille Pampell Conaway

Abstract:

In October 2000, for the first time in its history, the UN Security Council acknowledged that women have a key role in promoting international stability by passing Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security. It called on all parties to ensure women’s participation in peace processes, from the prevention of conflict to negotiations and postwar reconstruction. The Women Waging Peace Policy Commission was established to examine peace processes, with a particular focus on the contributions of women.

This report, Negotiating the Transition to Democracy and Reforming the Security Sector: The Vital Contributions of South African Women, documents the strategies women used to gain full participation in negotiations and in the transition, as well as their influence in shaping security sector policies and institutions. (Institute for Inclusive Security)

Topics: Democracy / Democratization, Gender, Women, Security Sector Reform Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 2004

Citation:

Sideris, Tina. 2005. “‘You Have to Change and You Don’t Know How’: Contesting What It Means to Be A Man in a Rural Area of South Africa.” In Men Behaving Differently: Men in South Africa Since 1994, edited by Graeme Reid and Liz Walker, 111–38. Cape Town, South Africa: Double Storey Books.

Author: Tina Sideris

Topics: Gender, Men, Masculinity/ies, Sexuality Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 2005

Citation:

Gear, Sasha. 2005. “Rules of Engagement: Structuring Sex and Damage in Men’s Prisons and Beyond.” In Men Behaving Differently: Men in South Africa Since 1994, edited by Graeme Reid and Liz Walker, 89–110. Cape Town, South Africa: Double Storey Books.

Author: Sasha Gear

Abstract:

This paper analyses data from a recent study of ex-prisoners and prisoners in Gauteng Province, South Africa, to consider the moral economy established by hegemonic inmate culture in which sexual interactions are negotiated. It argues that while this system is based on outside norms of heterosexism, ruptures with these norms occur. Male prison populations are rearranged into gendered categories through intricate inmate rituals, causing dramatic breaks in the ways that some prisoners are understood by others and themselves. The rituals and rules involved in the constructions appear to be unfamiliar from an 'outside' perspective, but have roots beyond prison walls. Similarly, the gendered positions generated are distinct from those they imitate, but also emerge in relation to them, beyond mere imitation. Even as new structures of identity emerge then, breaks with the outside are never total. Neither is the hold of the moral economy that inmate culture works so hard to create. Another order of rupture happens when prisoners transgress the rules of this economy, and subvert the meanings on which both the oppressive gender-sex status quo of the inside and that of the outside, rely.

Topics: Gender, Men, Sexuality Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 2005

Citation:

Moffett, Helen. 2006. “‘These Women, They Force Us to Rape Them:’ Rape as Narrative of Social Control in Post-Apartheid South Africa.” Journal of Southern African Studies 32 (1): 129–44.

Author: Helen Moffett

Abstract:

South Africa has the worst known figures for gender-based violence for a country not at war. At least one in three South African women will be raped in her lifetime. The rates of sexual violence against women and children, as well as the signal failure of the criminal justice and health systems to curtail the crisis, suggest an unacknowledged gender civil war. Yet narratives about rape continue to be rewritten as stories about race, rather than gender. This stifles debate, demonizes black men, hardens racial barriers, and greatly hampers both disclosure and educational efforts. As an alternative to racially-inflected explanations, I argue that contemporary sexual violence in South Africa is fuelled by justificatory narratives that are rooted in apartheid practices that legitimated violence by the dominant group against the disempowered, not only in overtly political arenas, but in social, informal and domestic spaces. In South Africa, gender rankings are maintained and women regulated through rape, the most intimate form of violence. Thus, in post-apartheid, democratic South Africa, sexual violence has become a socially endorsed punitive project for maintaining patriarchal order. Men use rape to inscribe subordinate status on to an intimately known 'Other' - women. This is generally and globally true of rape, but in the case of South Africa, such activities draw on apartheid practices of control that have permeated all sectors of society.

Topics: Gender, Women, Girls, Boys, Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Race, Sexual Violence, Rape, SV against Women Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 2006

Citation:

Niehaus, Isak. 2005. “Masculine Domination in Sexual Violence: Interpreting Accounts of Three Cases of Rape in the South African Lowveld.” In Men Behaving Differently: Men in South Africa Since 1994, edited by Graeme Reid and Liz Walker, 65–88. Capetown, South Africa: Double Storey Books.

Author: Isak Niehaus

Topics: Gender, Masculinity/ies, Gender-Based Violence, Sexual Violence, Rape, SV against Women Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 2005