Responses by black women to race and gender dynamics under South African Apartheid with special reference to the Black Consciousness Movement

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Black women's oppression under apartheid was based on four interacting forces: race, class,gender and nationality. Although this rendered their status in both feminist and anti-apartheidpolicies unique, it was never addressed as such. The national liberation movement definedwomen's role in the struggle in male dominated terms and did not acknowledge 'gender' as alegitimate political issue until the 1980s. There were no official restrictions that impededwomen's participation in national politics. It was rather the failure of parties to adequatelyaddress their social disabilities resulting from legal minority, geographical isolation and socialmarginalisation, that prevented women from participating on an equal level with men. Thefocus on women as 'significant others', as supportive mothers and wives, largely determinedblack women's self-perception and political consciousness. The growth of anti-apartheidmovements principally went along with new formations of women's organisations. Genderstruggles, however, appeared to be absent, since women's protests were indistinguishablybound up with other socio-political issues. Women's commitment to define themselves solelywithin the context of national liberation was highlighted in the Black ConsciousnessMovement (BCM), which called upon blacks to examine their psychological and physicaloppression and to realise the power of self-definition. Although women took a far moreassertive stance toward their subjugation as blacks, they entirely ignored the masculine natureof the language and ideological outlook of Black Consciousness (BC). BC writers tended toromanticise community life and gender relations, ignoring the actual dynamics of genderrelations amongst blacks, thus reinforcing traditional hierarchical structures. Womenparticipating in the upper ranks of the BCM saw their emancipation in terms of becoming'honorary men.' Feminist movements taking place in the Western world at that time wereovertly rejected by both men and women in South Africa.Women's entry into the public sphere of industrial production and national politics did notineluctably lead to their emancipation. Nor had these steps been motivated by the sought forliberation from domesticity and traditional gender relations. It was a reaction to the way inwhich apartheid eroded their traditional solidity. Women's protest movements showed highlyconservative features, as they affirmed obligations traditionally assigned to them as womenand aggressively utilised entrenched stereotypes to tackle social injustice. Black women werenot fighting for their personal rights as women but for their rights as mothers. The failure of. mainstream feminism to adequately address the nexus of race, class and gender which renderswomen's oppression in Third World societies, led to the acceptance of womanism. The latterStellenbosch University http://scholar.sun.ac.zaemerged in the late 1970s, gained momentum in the 1980s, and was closely related to bothBC and Black Feminism. It seeks to re-define black women's social status and roles inpositive and exclusively black terms, thereby frequently naturalising stereotypical definitionsof femininity. Emphasising black women's defiant engagement with white racism, it identifiesmotherhood and wifehood in political terms. Due to its inclusive approach, however,womanism restrains from elaborating definite theories and political programmes.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University