Women's organizations and democracy in South Africa : contesting authority

Literaturverz. S. 319 - 339

The transition to democracy in South Africa was one of the defining events in twentieth-century political history. The South African women's movement is one of the most recognized on the African continent. Shireen Hassim examines the interactions between the gendered nature of liberation and regime change. She reveals how women's political organizations both shaped and were shaped by the broader democratic movement. Alternately asserting their political independence and giving precedence to the democratic movement as a whole, women activists proved flexible and remarkably successful in influencing policy. At the same time, their feminism was profoundly shaped by the context of democratic and nationalist ideologies. Hassim confronts issues such as the tensions between autonomy and political dependency in feminists' engagement with the African National Congress (ANC) and other democratic movements, and black-white relations within women's organizations. She offers a historically informed discussion of the challenges facing feminist activists during a time of nationalist struggle and democratization.