Women in South African History

Basus’iimbokodo, Bawel’imilambo / They remove boulders and cross rivers In this fascinating collection, full of different textures, narratives and nuances, sixteen authors have begun to tackle the task of writing South Africas history from an overtly feminist perspective, giving readers an opportunity to understand and reflect on debates about real womens power in completely new and fresh ways.

HSRC Press

Product Information

Format:

110mm x 160mm

Pages:

536

ISBN-13:

978-07969-2174-1

Publish Year:

2007

Rights:

FOREWORD (Dr Pallo Zweledinga Jordan, Minister of Arts and Culture)
INTRODUCTION: Basusiimbokodo, bawelimilambo, new freedoms and new challenges, a continuing dialogue (Nomboniso Gasa)

PART 1
Women in the pre-colonial and pre-Union periods
Chiefly women and womens leadership in pre-colonial southern Africa (Jennifer Weir)
Like three tongues in one mouth: tracing the elusive lives of slave women in (slavocratic) South Africa (Pumla Dineo Gqola)
Not a Nongqawuse story: an anti-heroine in historical perspective (Helen Bradford)
Women and gender in the South African War, 18991902 (Elizabeth van Heyningen)

PART 2
Women in early- to mid-twentieth century South Africa
Let them build more gaols (Nomboniso Gasa)
Testimonies and transitions: women negotiating the rural and urban in the mid-20th century (Luli Callinicos)
Generations of struggle: trade unions and the roots of feminism, 19301960 (Iris Berger)
Feminisms, motherisms, patriarchies and womens voices in the 1950s (Nomboniso Gasa)

PART 3
War: armed and mass struggles as gendered experiences
Women in the ANC-led underground (Raymond Suttner)
Another mother for peace: women and peace building in South Africa, 19832003 (Jacklyn Cock)
We were not afraid: the role of women in the 1980s township uprising in the Eastern Cape (Janet Cherry)
Women, labour and resistance: case studies from the Port Elizabeth/Uitenhage area, 19721994 (Pat Gibbs)

PART 4
The 1990s: new identities, new victories, new struggles
Naked womens protest, July 1990: We wont fuck for houses (Sheila Meintjes)
Loving in a time of hopelessness: on township womens subjectivities in a time of HIV/AIDS (Nthabiseng Motsemme)
Invisible lives, inaudible voices? The social conditions of migrant women in Johannesburg (Caroline Kihato)
Ambiguity is my middle name: a research diary (Yvette Abrahams)

Nomboniso Gasa works on gender policy analysis. She is a feminist and is passionate about womens roles in history. Gasa has written and published on gender equality issues, African feminism and related issues. She has also done work on political transition in Nigeria and edited Democracy in Nigeria: Continuing Dialogues for Nation-building. Her current focus is on the Making of a Man in Xhosa society, which is a historic and feminist critique of cultural practice and its continued and changing meanings.

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