Gender and the Post-apartheid Era

Gender and the Post-apartheid Era International Perspectives on Gender Lecture 5

Structure of Lecture • Key Post-apartheid Election dates • Factors in Over-throw of Apartheid • Gender & Leadership in Struggle • Getting Gender onto the Agenda • Women in Parliament • Rights-based Gender Equality, and Limits • Loss of Grass-roots Leadership • On-going Gender Inequalities • Conclusions

Key Election Dates • March 1994 – First free elections, ANC swept to power (63% of vote). Nelson Mandela becomes President • 1999 – Second free elections – ANC wins again (66% of vote). Mandela retires and Thabo Mbeki becomes President • 2004 – Third free elections – ANC strengthens position (70% of vote) and Mbeki wins 2ndterm • 2008 – Mbeki forced to resign and KgalemaMotlanthe becomes President • 2009 - Fourth free elections – ANC gets 66% of vote and Jacob Zuma becomes President

Factors in Overthrow of Apartheid • Ungovernability. Strikes, boycotts, demonstrations, violence, unrest • International Sanctions biting • Pressures from business and companies • Lost war in Angola • Elections in Namibia – trying it out? • White regime talked peace with ANC while simultaneously supporting breakaway groups like the Inkatha Freedom Party (led by Buthelezi)

Election Day, 1994 Queuing to vote in the first one person one vote general election, 27 April 1994

Gender & Leadership • Male leaders - Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo, Albert Luthuli, Steve Biko, Robert Sobukwe, Joe Slovo • Black women leaders – WinnieMandela, LilianNgoyi, AlbertinaSisulu, Dorothy Mwembe- and white women - Helen Joseph, Ruth First • Women unable to be full ANC members until 1943 • Established women’s sections • Feminism seen as bourgeois, western

Winnie Mandela 1936- Albertina Sisulu 1918-2011 Lilian Ngoyi 1911-1980 Dorothy Mwembe 1931-1998 18 yrs in prison Ruth First 1925-1982 Helen Joseph 1905-1992

Gender Division of Labour in Struggle • Men as leaders and soldiers • Women as voters, providers, couriers, playing support roles • Patriarchal sexual relations • Women mobilising around their reproductive roles • Black Sash - a white women's passive resistance movement • African women taking place of exiled men • In 1980 women were 20% of MK cadres

Getting Gender onto the Agenda • Concerted effort to ensure that gender was on the agenda, not side-lined • Concern to avoid experiences of women in Zimbabwe and Mozambique • Malibongwe Conference in 1990 legitimised gender as an autonomous political aspect of national liberation • ANC honoured its commitment to reserve 30% of elected positions for women • Women’s National Coalition ensured gender equality & affirmative action in Constitution

Women in Parliament • 1994 – 111 women MPs elected, nearly all ANC • Put South Africa 8th in world in terms of gender equality in government (was 141st) • March 2002: 50/50 campaign launched • Women 42% of Parliamentarians in 2012 Parliament 2009

Challenges for Women MPs • Parliamentary structures built around men’s needs • Lack of professional skills • Unfamiliarity with procedures • Stereotyping • Trade union entrants cut off from grass-roots support • Former exiles had to build constituency SAs former Deputy President PhumzileMlambo-Ngcuka, now President of UN Women

Rights-based Gender Equality • Mandela: ‘It is vitally important that all the structures of Government, including the President should understand fully that freedom cannot be achieved unless women have been emancipated from all forms of oppression’ (Opening Parliament, 24 May 1994) • Legal equality and formal rights for women have been privileged in the Constitution, in Chapter Nine institutions like Commission for Gender Equality, in progressive gender-sensitive legislation • Labour rights, Child Support, Sexual and Reproductive rights, Education rights all addressed

Limits of Rights-based Equality • Gap between rights and realities (Hames) • Hegemony of neo-liberal capitalism = little economic redistribution and privatization = social and economic inequalities entrenched • Inequalities in income, education, location etc. mean privileged gain most from new right • Barriers to seeking rights: • Lack of knowledge or relevance (eg labour laws) • Lack of time, energy and money • Patriarchal cultural and religious values • Legal language, court procedures, delay, distance • Feminist ideas co-opted by state as yesterday’s revolutionaries become today’s state functionaries

Loss of Grassroots Leadership • Vacuum of women leaders created • ‘Women’s ‘now close to equal participation in government has come at a price of weakening the mass-based women’s movement that was the driving force behind the South African women’s move into parliament’ (Geisler, 2000, p. 627) • Vibrant organizations of workers, students, women and youth disbanded or compromised by alliance with ANC in government • Women MPs accountable to the party first

Gender Based Violence • Estimated a woman is raped every 30 seconds • 28% of men in recent study reported having perpetrated rape • Domestic violence common – in survey over 40% of men reported being physically violent to partner • Half of all women homicides result from domestic violence • Young black men are most likely to die violently – rate of violent death for men 8 times world average • Children prone to physical violence and over 33% of girls report having experienced sexual violence before aged 18 • Source: 2009 report, ‘Preventing Rape and Violence in South Africa’: http://www.mrc.ac.za/gender/prev_rapedd041209.pdf

The Link to Masculinities • Many men assume if women gain they lose (zero sum model of power) • Norm of male breadwinner threatened by women’s labour rights and welfare rights • Norm of male infidelity threatened by women’s economic autonomy • Many men equate women asserting their rights with lack of respect • Threat to identity leads men to domestic violence • Women’s political equality in public sphere more acceptable to men than women’s equality in private sphere of family/household • Some men are embracing gender equality

Gender and HIV/AIDS • 5.6 million South Africans living with HIV/AIDS in 2009; 310 000 died of HIV/AIDS that year • Nearly a third of women aged 25-29 infected, over a quarter of men aged 30-34 • Women have higher risk of infection, get less information and can’t generally insist on condom use • Burden of caring for people living with AIDS falls to women

Gendered Poverty • Poverty and unemployment have worsened since 1994 • 52% of African people are poor compared with less than 5% of white people • Black men more likely to be unemployed and in lower paid work than white men • Rural women remain the poorest and least educated group • Gender pay gap is 33.5% (2009 report) • Black women concentrated in informal sector employment, clothing/textiles, plantation work • Income inequalities between women growing • Female representation in top management grew from 13% to 17.8% between 2001 and 2008 • For statistics on poverty see South African Regional Poverty Network: http://www.sarpn.org.za/

Progress? Cape Town councillor June Frans surveys an open-air toilet in Khayelitsha, Cape Town suburb

Power Corrupts?: Marikana • August 2012 34 miners shot dead by police during pay strike • Lot of mine workers symbol of failure to address inequalities • ‘It’s hard to overestimate the impact that scenes once so associated with apartheid will have now they are replayed under a black, democratic government’ (Guardian, 20 Aug, 2012) • Ongoing enquiry: police fired unprovoked? • ANC lacks effective opposition

Conclusions • Apartheid officially ended in 1994 as ANC swept to power • Mass organization of South Africans was key factor in National Party conceding power, also intl sanctions • Women played key, often subordinate, roles in struggle • Coalition of women ensured gender was not side-lined • Parliament was transformed by women, but entering such a male bastion was not without challenge • Formal, rights based gender equality is second to none • Huge gaps remain between rights and realities • Grassroots leadership was lost as so many women entered government • Many black men feel threatened by women’s new rights • Inequalities persist, ANC lacks effective opposition • Next Week: Gender and State Socialism: The USSR

Gender and the Post-apartheid Era