{"id":1003,"date":"2016-09-11T17:49:43","date_gmt":"2016-09-11T15:49:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.satyagraha.org.za\/word\/?p=1003"},"modified":"2017-11-09T15:54:39","modified_gmt":"2017-11-09T13:54:39","slug":"south-africas-women-still-play-second-fiddle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gdt.org.za\/gdt\/south-africas-women-still-play-second-fiddle\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa’s Women Still Play Second Fiddle"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Barrel Mlisa Durban University of Technology B-tech student and SRC member<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Three events converge in August in <\/span><\/span>South Africa<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/u><\/span><\/span>: the 60th anniversary of the <\/span><\/span>March by Women<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/u><\/span><\/span> to the <\/span><\/span>Union Buildings<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/u><\/span><\/span>; the 22nd anniversary of the 1994 <\/span><\/span>Women’s Charter for Effective Equality<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/u><\/span><\/span> the finalization of the local government <\/span><\/span>elections<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/u><\/span><\/span>. They act as a prism, refracting South Africa’s politics of gender, its uneven legacies and its ambiguous futures.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The recent municipal elections do not show that political parties consider women’s issues relevant or important. Sixty years after women marched on Pretoria and 22 years after the first <\/span><\/span>democratic elections<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/u><\/span><\/span> there are no visible champions of women’s rights. In fact, the gains that have been made risk being rolled back.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Progress from 1956 to democracy<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The first moment of women’s mass political mobilization as women was through the Federation of South African Women (Fedsaw), inaugurated in 1954 with the adoption of the <\/span><\/span>Women’s Charter<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/u><\/span><\/span>. Fedsaw organized its first national protest against the extension of the hated <\/span><\/span>passes<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/u><\/span><\/span> \u2013 identity documents used to control the movement of black people during apartheid \u2013 to black women in 1955. But it is the protest march of August 9 1956 for which they are justly honored.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Political repression led to Fedsaw’s dissipation in the early 1960s, but its memory inspired the 1994 <\/span><\/span>Women’s Charter for Effective Equality<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/u><\/span><\/span>. This was the fruit of the <\/span><\/span>Women’s National Coalition<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/u><\/span><\/span> \u2013 the second moment of South African women’s widespread mobilization, made possible by the transition to democracy.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

This moment yielded important gains. Some of these included:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n