By Shireen Hassim


The transition to democracy in South Africa used to be one of many defining occasions in twentieth-century political background. The South African women’s circulate is among the such a lot celebrated at the African continent. Shireen Hassim examines interactions among the 2 as she explores the gendered nature of liberation and regime switch. Her paintings unearths how women’s political firms either formed and have been formed by means of the wider democratic move. Alternately announcing their political independence and giving priority to the democratic move as an entire, ladies activists proved versatile and remarkably profitable in influencing coverage. whilst, their feminism was once profoundly formed by way of the context of democratic and nationalist ideologies. In analyzing the final twenty-five years of South African heritage via a feminist framework, Hassim deals clean insights into the interactions among civil society, political events, and the state.

 

 

    Hassim boldly confronts delicate matters akin to the tensions among autonomy and political dependency in feminists’ engagement with the African nationwide Congress (ANC) and different democratic routine, and black-white relatives inside women’s organizations. She bargains a traditionally trained dialogue of the demanding situations dealing with feminist activists in the course of a time of nationalist fight and democratization.

 

 


Winner, Victoria Schuck Award for most sensible booklet on ladies and politics, American Political technological know-how Association

“An unparalleled learn, in accordance with vast examine. . . . hugely recommended.”—Choice

“A wealthy heritage of women’s businesses in South African . . . . [Hassim] had saw initially hand, and infrequently participated in, a lot of what she defined. She had entry to the informants and personal data that so brighten up the narrative and increase the research. She offers a finely balanced assessment.”—Gretchen Bauer, African experiences Review

 

 

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Social movements—including the women’s movement—have an advantage during the transition because they can mobilize followers and bring people into the streets. ”21 The opening up of fundamental questions about the nature of the new political and social order in South Africa offered the opportunity for women to insert their claims for women’s rights into the institutional fabric of the new democracy. 22 The Women’s National Coalition lobbied for extended political rights for women—not just the right to vote but the right to participate at the highest levels of decision making.

65 In other words, women’s organizations should take their political leadership from the national liberation movement. 66 The Radical Feminist Position Radical feminism was a relatively marginal position, although not unimportant in laying the foundation for an expanded understanding of the sources of women’s oppression. This position was articulated primarily by white feminists who worked to end violence against women. Many radical feminists were based at university campuses, while others worked in the rape crisis centers established by feminists in the major cities in the 1980s.

39 To what extent, then, were the expectations that the coalition could become a long-term vehicle for national political interventions misplaced? Was the coalition merely a child of the transition, doomed to crumble once the incentives of transition were removed and political normalization was set in place? As I have noted, the extent to which a relatively autonomous and sustainable structure could be built has a central effect on the ability of the women’s movement to pose fundamental questions about the distribution of power Introduction 19 and resources on terms that were independent of those set by the state or by male-dominated political parties.

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