Remembering the Women of the ANC

From the Mail & Guardian:

As we reflect on 100 years of the ANC, we must also reflect on the years that preceded its formation and honour, acknowledge, celebrate and critique the heritage bequeathed to us.

In 1956 despite a strong ANC "recommendation" to the contrary, women led by the federation undertook their most risky operation -- the march to Pretoria to protest against the extension of pass laws to African women. The exchanges between women such as Lillian Ngoyi and the ANC's male leadership reveal a complex but mutually respectful relationship and sharp ideological contestations among equals.

In the decades between then and now much has changed in the ANC and in the country. Much too has changed in the manner in which women locate and use their political agency within the ANC.

The longest surviving liberation movement in Africa celebrates it's centenary confronted by major and fundamental contestations within its ranks and sometimes publicly displayed acrimonious differences within its leadership.

SA: Women Remember Tshwane Women's March

From IOL News:

In 1956 more than 20 000 women marched to the Union Buildings to inform the apartheid regime they were tired of being oppressed and were opposed to having to carry passes.

Yesterday, women again marched to the Union Buildings, but to celebrate the stalwarts who risked their lives in the 1956 march.

While thousands gathered at venues across the country, Tshwane executive mayor Gwen Ramokgopa led a group of women from Lilian Ngoyi Square (formerly Strijdom Square) to the Union Buildings where they celebrated and discussed issues affecting them.

"Exactly today on August 9, 1956, 20 000 brave women led by our great struggle icons and woman stalwarts, Lilian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph, Rahima Moosa and Sophia Williams-De Bruyn embarked on a historic march here in Tshwane - one of the largest demonstrations staged in this country's history," said Ramokgopa.

SA: Top Female Cops

From Times Live:

Women in Western Cape showed their mettle with the command of six police stations across the province being entrusted to the fairer sex.

Margaret Dina Smith was appointed to Oudtshoorn police station, Nomteteleli Mene to Stellenbosch, Denise Brand to Elsie's River, Gerda van Niekerk to Kraaifontein, Regina Makawu to Gugulethu and Sharon Govender to Paarl.

Another feather in the female cap is the appointment of Yoliswa Matakata as head of crime intelligence in Western Cape.

SA: Violence Against Women

From IOL:

Women in South Africa are six times more likely to be killed by their "male partners" than elsewhere in the world, says the senior researcher at the Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre, Lisa Vetton.

She said the rate of such killings by intimate partners in South Africa was six times higher than the global average.

"It translates into four women killed every day by their intimate partners."

This was one of the chilling statistics given by Vetton when she took part in SAfm Radio's discussion programme, the After Eight Debate, on violence against women and children.

The debate marked the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence campaign.

Vetton said last year's statistics showed 52 000 rapes had been reported in South Africa. "But research from 1997 found that only one in nine women in the study was reporting. This suggests we are looking at closer to 450 000 rapes a year. If you compare our reported rapes with those in the United States, it is three times higher."

SA: Women Only Mosque

From Times Live (South Africa):

The Sandton Muslim Jamaat Mosque for women is the first of its kind in the country. Women worshippers now have a place to offer prayer adjacent to the men's mosque.

Rashid Mayet said they decided to build the mosque because of their large worship base.

He said people travelled from as far afield as Durban and Cape Town to attend the mosque.

"The ladies' facility will allow them to pray while their husbands and male family members are attending prayers at their mosque," said Mayet.

Construction started in January. The interior decor and landscaping was recently completed.

The building cost about R800000 and was funded with public and members' donations. Materials for the building were sourced locally.

The mosque accommodates about 30 women in the prayer room and includes a facility for babies.

SA: National Women's Day

Tomorrow, 9th August is National Women's Day in South Africa:

On August 9, 1956 20000 women staged a march on the Union Buildings in Pretoria to protest against the proposed amendments to the Urban Areas Act (commonly known as the pass laws) of 1950. They left bundles of petitions containing more than 100000 signatures at prime minister J.G. Strijdom's office door.

Outside they stood silently for 30 minutes, many with their children on their backs. Those who were working for whites as nannies were carrying their white charges with them. The women sang a protest song that was composed in honour of the occasion: Wathint’Abafazi Wathint’imbokodo! (Now you have touched the women, you have struck a rock). In the 54 years since, the phrase (or its latest incarnation: “you strike a woman, you strike a rock”) has come to represent women’s courage and strength in South Africa.

The march was led by Lilian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph, Rahima Moosa and Sophia Williams-De Bruyn.

Since 1994 August 9 is commemorated annually and is known as Women’s Day in South Africa. In 2006 a reenactment of the march was staged for its 50th anniversary, with many of the 1956 march veterans attending.

Helen Zille - Politics in SA

From the Denver Post:

Helen Zille has a sharp tongue and a short fuse, and she doesn't dodge a fight. In apartheid times she enraged South Africa's white rulers, and lately she has ruffled South Africa's black political establishment.

Having won plaudits as mayor of Cape Town, she is now leader of the main opposition and her province's premier—a striking example of democracy at work in a country that is ruled by blacks but leaves room for white politicians like Zille.

That's a tall order, given that her Democratic Alliance is still perceived as mainly white and most black South Africans are loyal to the ANC which liberated them from oppression. Zille says that 15 years after apartheid formally ended, race no longer should dominate politics.

Interview with Lisa Vetten

From allAfrica, a snippet from Stephanie Nieuwoudt's interview with gender rights activist, Lisa Vetten:

"With its emphasis on gender equality, the South African constitution is regarded as a great example for many other developing countries. Yet, despite laws intended to protect the rights of women like the Sexual Abuse Act and the Domestic Violence Act, women in the country still suffer indignities at the hands of police and in court.

Lisa Vetten, a policy analyst at the Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre, an organisation that protects the rights of women, has been fighting for the rights of women for most of her life."

Rape as a "cure" for lesbians

In what has to be one of the most disturbing stories to cross my desk this week, reports are coming in that gangs of South African men are "correctively" raping women in an attempt to "cure" them of being lesbians.

From the Australian:
"SOUTH African lesbians are suffering rapes by men trying to "cure" their homosexuality, in what is becoming one of the most common hate crimes against gay women in the country, according to a new study.

The study by the anti-poverty group ActionAid said that women living in townships in Johannesburg and Cape Town were reporting increasing attacks and murders by men committing so-called "corrective" rape.

South African women generally face a staggering risk of rape in a country with one of the highest crime rates in the world.

At least 31 lesbians have been killed in homophobic attacks over the last decade, but only one case has led to a conviction, it said, warning the real number of killings is likely much higher in a country where 50 people meet a violent death every day."

From the Mail Online:
"The extent of the brutality became clear when Eudy Simelane, former star of South Africa's national female football squad, became one of the victims last April.

Simelane, one of the first women to live openly as a lesbian and an equality rights campaigner, was gang-raped and beaten before being stabbed to death 25 times in the face, chest and legs.

Triangle, a gay rights organisation, said it deals with up to 10 new cases of 'corrective rape' every week.

Support groups claim an increasingly macho political environment led to inaction over attacks.

Human rights and equality campaigners are hoping the reaction to Simelane's death and the trial of the three men accused of her rape and murder will help put an end to the attacks."

From IOL:
"But lesbians are being singled out by men who think that the rape will change their sexual orientation, said Zanele Twala, head of ActionAid South Africa.

"So-called 'corrective' rape is yet another grotesque manifestation of violence against women, the most widespread human rights violation in the world today," she said.

One support group in Cape Town said it is responding to 10 new cases of "corrective" rape every week, in that city alone, the report said.

South Africa's constitution enshrines equal rights for gay people, but hate crimes based on sexual orientation are not recognised by law or in courts, the study said.

At least 31 lesbians have been killed in homophobic attacks over the last decade, but only one case has led to a conviction, it said, warning the real number of killings is likely much higher in country where 50 people meet a violent death every day."

Helen Suzman

Politician and anti-apartheid activist, Helen Suzman, passed away on January 1st this year.

"Helen Suzman, the internationally prominent anti-apartheid campaigner who befriended the imprisoned Nelson Mandela and offered an often lonely voice for change among South Africa's white minority, has died, South Africa's SAPA news agency reported on Thursday. She was 91.

Suzman was for many years among the most venerated of white campaigners urging an end to the injustices of racial rule. But, while she challenged apartheid, her views on the creation of a new society fell well short of demands advanced by more radical black campaigners for such measures as economic sanctions to pressure the country's white rulers toward reform.

A diminutive, spry and elegant politician, Suzman became her country's longest-serving legislator, pressing for changes from the benches of the whites-only Parliament for 36 years before she retired from the assembly in 1989 and later created a pro-democracy foundation named after her."

The Age has an article covering the career of this remarkable women: "Courageous MP who single-handedly took on apartheid"

Women in SA Politics

From IOL:
"With Kgalema Motlanthe named as the new president of the country, his deputy is now expected to be the Speaker of the National Assembly, Baleka Mbete.

Senior ANC sources in parliament told The Mercury on Wednesday that the ruling party had decided on Mbete to succeed Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. They said Motlanthe would formally name Mbete as deputy president after he had been sworn in by Chief Justice Pius Langa at Tuynhuys on Thursday.

Mbete became one of the most powerful women in South Africa when she was elected national chairman of the ANC and chairman of its parliamentary political committee.

ANC insiders also said that deputy Speaker Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde would fill Mbete's position.

Despite being sacked for an unauthorised trip to Spain last year, Madlala-Routledge's star had continued to rise in the Jacob Zuma camp, the ANC insiders said.

Madlala-Routledge was recently appointed chairman of the ANC caucus in parliament. Her appointment as deputy Speaker is viewed by some as recognition for her work as a member of parliament.

Mbete's spokesperson, Thenjiwe Kona, refused to confirm the appointment. She said it was news to her that Mbete was to be the deputy president."


Baleka Mbete - from Who's Who of South Africa
Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge - from Who's Who of South Africa
Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde - from Business Day

Inroads of South Africa Women

On 11th August 2008, thousands of women from Gauteng Province, celebrated the 52nd anniversary of a march their female forerunners made upon the Union Building. This year they converged to celebrate the progress made by women in both politics and business.

From IOL:
Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa ... "said although the women's march was organised as a protest against pass laws, it was about the rights of women to participate in shaping a nation, their right and freedom to participate as equals in the economic and social life of the country.

He said women should continue to raise their voices whenever injustice occurs and when democracy is threatened. "

Tshwane's executive mayor Dr Gwen Ramokgopa "challenged women to get involved in politics, business and religious institutions to stand up and be counted to create a better future for the women of South Africa.

"The women, who marched in 1956, used their rights to fight apartheid as well as to create a better life for us. As we look forward to 2010, let us make gender equality one of our main priorities," Ramokgopa said."

Women of the ANC

IOL has the following article featuring notable women who have played an active role in the ANC over the past few decades.

The ANC's women of consequence
"The ideological forcefulness of men is so heightened that it's no easy task to remember the names of women revolutionaries of the class of German socialist Rosa Luxemburg or American anarchist Emma Goldman. But the ANC was elevated, its global public relations advanced, by the unyielding wife of one of the world's most courageous men."

The article features such women as:

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela; Ruth Mompati; Florence Moposho; Gertrude Shope; Ellen Khuzwayo; Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge; Susan Shabangu; Angie Motshekga; Lynne Brown; and Thenjiwe Mtintso.

It gives a little insight into the background of the pioneering women, and sets a new course for politics in South Africa.

National Womens' Day

This day commemorates 9 August 1956 when women participating in a national march petitioned against pass laws (legislation that required African persons to carry a document on them to ‘prove’ that they were allowed to enter a ‘white area’).

How did you celebrate the 9th of August ???? Was it a "political" holiday where you are. Not for me - I am fairly certain, that with all eyes on the Olympic Games, the day went unremarked in nations outside of South Africa.

In South Africa, Jacob Zuma, ANC President, said the day should remain a political holiday.

From news24:
"The ANC president said National Women's Day should be protected against being "diluted" to suit commercial interests.

"National Women's Day is the celebration of the role and contribution of women to public life, in the struggle for freedom, in the building of a new non-racial and democratic South Africa and in building our future."

Speaking at a half filled Zuka Baloi Stadium in Welkom, Zuma said the day should be protected from being "de-politicised" of which signs were already evident.

"These (efforts) appears to be designed to turn the day into something frivolous, similar to either Valentine's Day or Mother's Day."

Zuma said National Women's Day, a public holiday, should remain as a dedication to the heroism of women in the past and the "critical importance of women's struggle" in the South Africa in future. "

Events in some places were called off due to weather.

About National Women's Day (from Wiki)

Women's League President Elected

From: IOL
"The new executive of the ANC Women's League was elected on Sunday with Gauteng education MEC Angie Motshekga being declared the new president of the league.

In a statement, ANCWL said the race was contested between League secretary general Bathabile Dlamini and Motshekga.

"Motshekga won with 1826 votes," ANCWYL said.

Motshekga is expected to give her acceptance speech later on Sunday, the last day of the Women's League conference in Bloemfontein.

The four-day conference started on Thursday.

Nosiphiwo Mwambi from the Western Cape was elected as the new deputy president, Sisisi Tolashe as secretary general, Mpai Mogori as deputy secretary-general and Hlengiwe Mkhize as treasurer. - Sapa"