Decolonised Mentoring and Black Women's Excellence: Some Thoughts on Mentoring in Post-Apartheid South Africa

What role have black women from poor black townships of South Africa played in African or black feminism? To ask this is to open up Pandora’s box about our denial of the homogeneity of black middle class feminism in South Africa. Black feminism is invoked as though black women are devoid of class/sexuality/gender/educational differences. To ask what role black feminists from the township play requires us to examine the shape that black feminism takes in the black townships of South Africa. This paper takes the form of a transcribed interview with my aunt and black feminist scholar, Wanelisa Xaba. In the interview, I locate myself as a ‘township feminist’ and reflect on what this identity means in post-apartheid South Africa. Much needs to be explored about the disjuncture between middle class black feminism and the lived realities of poor black African women on the ground. Informed by Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality, the transcribed interview between Xaba and me reflects on the dynamics of gender/class/education ‘privilege’ in our family. During the interview, we explore the politics of a university education as a legitimiser of feminist ‘credibility’ and how ‘university privilege’ is a form of structural violence perpetrated against black feminists outside of the academy. We further explore how Xaba (a feminist who went to university) experiences privilege within the family while my feminism remains marginalised. Taking a closer look at our childhood, Xaba and I further explore the gendered extra labour we have had to undertake in order to ‘hold down the home’. This speaks to a broader issue: when the state fails to liberate black people from poverty, the girl child is tasked with the extra burden of providing. This we mirror against prevalent traditional Xhosa values that assert that ‘men are providers’. We juxtapose this view with the actual situation in which black women are the actual providers and pillars of township communities. This interview aims to illuminate an intergenerational conversation between family members about privilege, power, socialisation and reclamation of black township feminism.

“Africa's First Woman Press Photographer”: Mabel Cetu's Photographs in <i>Zonk!</i>

Higher education institutions strive to ensure that their faculty are representative of the diverse students they serve. The importance of faculty diversity is particularly important in engineering, which is often dominated by white men. In South Africa, race remains contested 26 years after the end of apartheid, and the majority Black African population continues to be marginalized in political, economic, and knowledge enterprises. Black women represent 90% of the female population in South Africa. However, Black women are scarcely represented—and sometimes absent—in engineering academia. In this chapter, I argue that Black women’s career choices are influenced by their higher education experiences, which signal to Black women that they do not belong in higher education spaces. Using evidence from qualitative interviews conducted with 18 Black African women engineers in South Africa, I highlight how Black women experience higher education as racialized and gendered, discouraging them from pursuing academic careers. These race-gendered experiences need to be understood in the historical context of higher education and engineering in South Africa and in the remnants of an apartheid past that continue to impact everyday decisions of Black African South African women pursuing engineering degrees. The chapter concludes with implications and considerations for higher education institutions and engineering departments as they work to recruit and retain Black women in engineering academia.

Chronic diseases of lifestyle in South Africa are on the increase, as shown by recent studies. Black women, who have the country’s highest levels of inactivity, overweight and obesity, are particularly at risk. This study used qualitative methods to investigate barriers to physical activity participation in two generations of Black professional women (teachers, nurses, social workers and public managers). The two generations reflect pre- and post-democracy age groups in South Africa. The older generation (n=20), aged 35 to 45 years, spent their formative years in apartheid South Africa, disadvantaged by racial policies. The younger generation (n=27), aged 18 to 21 years, spent their formative years in post-apartheid South Africa, post-1990, under a constitution which guarantees equality and non-discrimination. In-depth qualitative interviews, utilizing an interview guide, were used to collect data from the participants until data saturation was achieved. Data from the interviews were transcribed, analysed and verified in accordance with Cresswell (2003) and Guba’s model of trustworthiness (Krefting, 1991). Three sub-themes were identified relating to barriers to physical activity participation: personal, environmental and socio-cultural factors. The socio-cultural factors, the focus of this article, included the lack of social support, exercise “not being a part of African culture”, traditional gender roles, dress code, exercise associated with the young, exercise associated with undesirable weight loss and “destructive talk” by the community. The findings have highlighted misconceptions about exercise. Conservative socio-cultural barriers will have to be overcome before physical activity is seen as normative behaviour for Black women in a South African context.Key words: Physical activity; Socio-cultural barriers; Black women.

Orientation: Dr Mamphela Ramphele is a prominent South African activist whose career development amid apartheid and post-apartheid struggles holds great significance from an industrial and organisational psychology perspective.Research purpose: The purpose of the study was to examine the career development of Dr Mamphela Ramphele.Motivation for the study: This study provides an example of the successful career development of an extraordinary black woman, which can be viewed as a role model for career-oriented women in South Africa today.Research approach/design and method: This qualitative study uses a psychobiographical approach and applies the Greenhaus model of career development to understand Ramphele’s career development throughout her life. The sampling followed a purposive sampling technique and used content analysis.Main findings: The findings show that Ramphele’s career development is influenced by factors such as the influence of apartheid laws, social, familial and cultural factors, personal loss, economic challenges, activism and academic pursuit, criticisms and resilience and independent thinking.Practical/managerial implications: This psychobiographical study may guide industrial and organisational psychologists and career counsellors in understanding the challenges of black women developing their careers.Contribution/value-add: The contribution of this study is to present an in depth understanding of the career development of an extraordinary black woman during apartheid and in post-apartheid South Africa. Also, this study contributes to the body of literature on psychobiographies of black women activists in South Africa. It may help industrial and organisational psychologists in South Africa to understand the unique challenges faced by black women during apartheid, the transition into post-apartheid South Africa and beyond.

abstractThis profile focuses on the Institute for Learning and Motivation – South Africa (ILM-SA) and its (co)founder Fatima Asmal's work as a community organiser and activist. Fatima is a public figure, Muslim community activist, journalist, producer of a recent documentary on Muslim Identity in South Africa, and founder of community organisation ILM-SA in Durban. ILM-SA provides an interesting lens through which to consider middle-class Indian Muslim identities in post-apartheid South Africa, as the organisation boldly and explicitly encourages (middle-class Indian) Muslims to live less insular lives, and also aims to promote inclusivity beyond the barriers of race and class. For ILM-SA and Fatima Asmal, Muslim women are often the key focus, and accomplished individuals are promoted in order to encourage Muslim women to actively participate in public life, within and beyond ‘the community’.This profile also explores ILM-SA and the views of Fatima Asmal, sometimes through contrast with other Muslim community organisations, in order to shed light on and ask preliminary questions around how her choices reveal, and give voice to, the possibilities and pathways available to Muslim women in post-apartheid Durban and South Africa. The author suggests that organisations such as ILM-SA offer a lens through which to see the (re)making of Durban's middle-class Indian Muslim community in post-apartheid South Africa.

Feminist discourses around the scourge of gender-based violence (GBV) have historically prioritized the voices and contextualities of cisgender heterosexual women, often to the exclusion of trans persons. In light of the continual invisibility of black trans persons and in particular black trans women in anti-GBV activism, this paper explores black trans women’s experiences of violence in post-apartheid South Africa. The study was undertaken from a transfeminist framework that asserts that the stories and histories of trans persons are central to the development of trans epistemologies within an inclusive gender liberation framework. The study followed a narrative methodological approach. Unstructured individual interviews were conducted with eight black trans women living in South Africa. Narratives of gender policing and punitive sexual violence in addition to narratives of cissexism as well as of the paradoxical hypervisibility and invisibility of black trans positions revealed violence meted against black trans women in South Africa as structural, grounded on a patriarchal matrix of cisgender power representing trans women as devalued others. Apartheid legacies of racialised economic marginalisation manifest as bearing a strong mediating role in shaping black trans women’s sustained vulnerability to violence. By addressing anti-trans violence as a feminist concern, this paper disrupts the ciscentricism of feminism, enabling more nuanced and inclusive constructions of GBV.

Made Visible: Contemporary South African Fashion and Identity curated by Kathryn Gunsch

Studies on the barriers migrant women face when trying to access healthcare services in South Africa have emphasized economic factors, fear of deportation, lack of documentation, language barriers, xenophobia, and discrimination in society and in healthcare institutions as factors explaining migrants' reluctance to seek healthcare. Our study aims to visualize some of the outcome effects of these barriers by analyzing data on maternal death and comparing the local population and black African migrant women from the South African Development Countries (SADC) living in South Africa. The heightened maternal mortality of black migrant women in South Africa can be associated with the hidden costs of barriers migrants face, including xenophobic attitudes experienced at public healthcare institutions. Our analysis is based on data on reported causes of death (COD) from the South African Department of Home Affairs (DHA). Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) processed the data further and coded the cause of death (COD) according to the WHO classification of disease, ICD10. The dataset is available on the StatsSA website (http://nesstar.statssa.gov.za:8282/webview/) for research and statistical purposes. The entire dataset consists of over 10 million records and about 50 variables of registered deaths that occurred in the country between 1997 and 2018. For our analysis, we have used data from 2002 to 2015, the years for which information on citizenship is reliably included on the death certificate. Corresponding benchmark data, in which nationality is recorded, exists only for a 10% sample from the population and housing census of 2011. Mid-year population estimates (MYPE) also exist but are not disaggregated by nationality. For this reason, certain estimates of death proportions by nationality will be relative and will not correspond to crude death rates. The total number of female deaths recorded from the years 2002 to 2015 in the country was 3740.761. Of these, 99.09% (n = 3,707,003) were deaths of South Africans and 0.91% (n = 33,758) were deaths of SADC women citizens. For maternal mortality, we considered the total number of deaths recorded for women between the ages of 15 and 49 years of age and were 1,530,495 deaths. Of these, deaths due to pregnancy-related causes contributed to approximately 1% of deaths. South African women contributed to 17,228 maternal deaths and SADC women to 467 maternal deaths during the period under study. The odds ratio for this comparison was 2.02. In other words, our findings show the odds of a black migrant woman from a SADC country dying of a maternal death were more than twice that of a South African woman. This result is statistically significant as this odds ratio, 2.02, falls within the 95% confidence interval (1.82-2.22). The study is the first to examine and compare maternal death among two groups of women, women from SADC countries and South Africa, based on Stats SA data available for the years 2002-2015. This analysis allows for a better understanding of the differential impact that social determinants of health have on mortality among black migrant women in South Africa and considers access to healthcare as a determinant of health. As we examined maternal death, we inferred that the heightened mortality among black migrant women in South Africa was associated with various determinants of health, such as xenophobic attitudes of healthcare workers toward foreigners during the study period. The negative attitudes of healthcare workers toward migrants have been reported in the literature and the media. Yet, until now, its long-term impact on the health of the foreign population has not been gaged. While a direct association between the heightened death of migrant populations and xenophobia cannot be established in this study, we hope to offer evidence that supports the need to focus on the heightened vulnerability of black migrant women in South Africa. As we argued here, the heightened maternal mortality among migrant women can be considered hidden barriers in which health inequality and the pervasive effects of xenophobia perpetuate the health disparity of SADC migrants in South Africa.

South Africa is experiencing an HIV/AIDS epidemic whose prevalence remains the highest globally (UNAIDS, 2014). With an estimated 5.7 million HIV-positive persons in South Africa, it is pertinent to develop and sustain a multi-sector strategy for combating the HIV/AIDS epidemic which acknowledges poverty, denialism, stigma, and discrimination as social drivers, acting as deterrents towards treatment and awareness campaigns. These societal drivers are compounded by structural drivers which perpetuate vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. Intersectional stigma and discrimination act as barriers to effective treatment and prevention combination strategies which seek to decrease prevalence, especially amongst the most at risk populations (MARPs): Black women and youth, the LGBTQ community, intravenous drug users, the prison population, orphans, and sex workers (UNAIDS, 2011a; UNAIDS, 2014). These drivers not only perpetuate myths and misconceptions, but directly impact behaviour and decision-making capabilities. Black women and youth in urban and rural areas in South Africa represent one of the MARPs whose prevalence continues to increase, while other vulnerable groups prevalence has decreased or remains stagnant (UNAIDS, 2014). It is imperative to utilize the theory of intersectionality to better comprehend the relationship between poverty, denialism, stigma, and discrimination and its impact on the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa.

A substantial body of research has established that women academics are under-represented both nationally and internationally with regard to research activity. The issues and obstacles faced by Black women that impede their full participation in the higher education sector are not new. They are old issues that have not yet been fully acknowledged, discussed and resolved (Henry and Glenn 2009). The literature suggests a number of possible factors which lie behind women’s less than impressive research profile such as the fact that women have less discretionary time to conduct research, write papers and attend conferences, particularly if they have dependent children or other caring responsibilities. The long hours associated with research production are hugely gendered. Few women, however, have managed to succeed in spite of this gendered problematic of research in higher education. Even fewer black women, though, have succeeded to establish a research career in South Africa. The present study was undertaken within the context of one university research organisation in the post-apartheid South Africa, where the legal impediments for the success of black women researchers would be expected to have been removed. The major purpose was to explore the narratives of women academics in research, especially Black women who, for the most part have continued to be marginalised in the academe. The paper discusses the experiences of one senior black woman researcher at one large higher education institution in South Africa. Using the black feminist theories as my framework, I examine the various impediments, both personal and structural that mitigate against women’s careers as researchers within the higher education institutions. I conclude the paper by arguing for the need to pay more critical attention to the institutional and structural impediments in order to address more directly the problem of marginalisation of women researchers within South African higher education. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n3p611

Shireen Hassim Turning Gender Rights into Entitlements: Women and Welfare Provision in Postapartheid South Africa THE TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY IN SOUTH AFRICA WAS MARKED BY THE extent to which women mobilized to ensure that the new political system would be accessible to women’s participation and that policy outcomes would be gender equitable.’ Arguments for gender equality were pursued in tandem with those for social rights. As a consequence, both are conceived as integral to citizenship in democratic South Africa. The constitution imposes particular responsibilities on government to address socioeconomic inequalities as part of a progressive realization of human rights and in ways that erode gender inequalities in addi­ tion to race inequalities (Liebenberg, 1998). The constitutional obliga­ tions are enacted by the creation of an institutional framework (called the national machinery for women) to ensure the inclusion of gender equality concerns in policy formulation. In the early 1990s, women’s organizations, led by the Women’s National Coalition, argued for the greater representation ofwomen in elected political bodies.1As a result of the successes of these strategies, the country has consistently been among the highest performers in the world in terms of the numbers of women elected to political office. social research Vol 72 : No 3 : Fall 2005 621 These developments created the expectation that social and economic policies would follow suit in placing the expansion of women’s social rights at the core of government priorities. However, South Africa’s political representation performance in the 10 years since the inception of democracy significantly outstrips its perfor­ mance in improving women’s economic position. On the Gender and Development Index of the United Nations, South Africa ranks nineti­ eth out of 144 countries. Clearly, political presence does not necessar­ ily mean that poor women’s interests will be adequately addressed in economic and social policy. Poor women are in many respects South Africa’s most vulnerable citizens. Statistics for a 2003 South African labor force study showed that women on the whole had lower incomes, higher unemployment rates, and less access to assets than men (Seidman-Makgetla, 2004:2). African women make up 42 percent of the workforce but only 30 percent of the employed population. Young African women are even worse off, with African women under the age of 30 facing an unemployment rate of 75 percent. Those women who are employed find themselves in the poorest-paying sectors of the labor market, notably in domestic and retail work. In 2003, 96 percent of domestic workers were black (that is, African, Indian, and Colored) women. In South Africa “Colored” refers to people who were designated “mixed race” under apartheid. It remains a demographic categoiy and to some extent a political identity in postapartheid South Africa.) Ninety-three percent of these workers earned under 1,000 rand (R) (approximately $180) per month (SeidmanMakgetla , 2004: 7). African rural women are the poorest category of citizens: in 1997, 65 percent of African female-headed households in rural areas were poor compared to 54 percent of male-headed house­ holds (Seidman-Makgetla, 2004: 40). At 29.4 percent, the mortality rate among African women was more than twice that of white women in 1994 (11.5 percent) (Seidman-Makgetla, 2004:41). It has been estimated that 53 percent of South Africans, including 60 percent of the coun­ try’s children, live in households with the lowest per capita consump­ tion (Samson, 2002: 71). On the UN Gender and Development Index, 622 social research even though women and men had comparable school enrollment and adult literacy ratios, men earned more than twice women’s earnings (Budlender, 2003:10). These gender vulnerabilities are compounded by the HIV/AIDs pandemic. African women are most vulnerable to HIV infection, more women than men are HIV positive, and women are more likely to become infected at a younger age than men. The pandemic imposes additional burdens on women in their roles as primary carers of family members who are HIV positive. These caring tasks, moreover, have to be performed in the context of poor basic services such as the availabil­ ity of electricity, clean water, and modern sanitation. Given these gendered social and economic patterns, this arti...

This study explored interactions between dietary fat intake and the tumor necrosis factor-α gene (TNFA) -238G>A polymorphism (rs361525) on adiposity and serum lipid concentrations in apparently healthy premenopausal black and white South African (SA) women. Normal-weight (N=107) and obese (N=120) black, and normal-weight (N=89) and obese (N=62) white SA women underwent measurements of body composition, fasting lipids and dietary intake, and were genotyped for the -238G>A polymorphism. Black women had a higher -238GA genotype frequency than white women (P<0.001), but there were no differences between body mass index groups. Black women with the -238A allele had a greater body fat % than those with the GG genotype (P<0.001). Further, in black women, with increasing polyunsaturated:saturated fat ratio and omega-6 (n-6):omega-3 (n-3) ratio, high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C) concentrations decreased, and total cholesterol (T-C):HDL-C ratio increased in those with the GA genotype but not the GG genotype. In addition, with increasing n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid intake (percentage of total energy intake, %E), T-C:HDL-C ratio decreased in those with the GA genotype, but not in those with the GG genotype. In white SA women, with increasing eicosapentaenoic acid (%E) intake, low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol concentrations decreased in those with the GG genotype but not the GA genotype. The -238G>A polymorphism was associated with body fatness in black women. Interactions between -238G>A genotypes and dietary fat intake on serum lipids and adiposity differed depending on dietary fat intake, but those for serum lipids were not the same in black and white SA women.

The author critically examines the organising principle of the affirmative action provisions of the Employment Equity Act (or EEA), as well as the implications of the recent judgment by the Constitutional Court in its first case involving the application of affirmative action in the employment context (and in terms of the EEA) – SAPS v Solidarity obo Barnard . While reiterating the need for restitutionary measures such as affirmative action in South Africa, the author concludes – probably quite controversially - that the EEA's treatment of affirmative action has nothing to do with the equality right in the Bill of Rights, and that the Act pursues a different (and omnipresent) social engineering agenda by the state. The author calls for this realisation to prompt future affirmative action cases arising from the application of this Act to be removed from the scheme of (and potential defences available under) the equality jurisprudence, and for the courts to critically interrogate the constitutionality of the EEA's affirmative action scheme within its own context. The author believes that Chapter III of the Act is unconstitutional in this sense, and he calls for the scrapping of its provisions. He also calls for a (more) constitutionally-compliant exposition from the Constitutional Court of the parameters of legitimate affirmative action under the Bill of Rights, and adds his voice to the numerous calls for reconsideration of the rationality test expounded in Minister of Finance v van Heerden . More generally, the author considers the apparently all-pervasive application of the government ideology of the pursuit of demographic representivity in transformation of employment and other contexts (expressing grave doubts about its constitutionality along the way). In Part 1 of this piece (which precedes this article in this edition), the author considers the constitutional requirements for a legitimate affirmative action programme or measure. He then examines the affirmative action scheme of the Employment Equity Act , and explains his views on why such scheme is, in fact, unconstitutional. This article forms Part 2 of this piece and the author continues to critically evaluate the Constitutional Court judgment in the Barnard case, and he highlights the biggest areas of disappointment of this judgment within the context of South Africa's equality jurisprudence. After a very brief consideration of the recent amendments to the E mployment Equity Act , the author concludes by providing reasons why the Act's approach to affirmative action needs to be rejected, and soon. Keywords : affirmative action; (substantive) equality; (demographic) representivity; Employment Equity Act , 1998; section 9 Bill of Rights; unfair discrimination; quotas; numerical targets; SAPS v Solidarity obo Barnard ; Minister of Finance v van Heerden ; rationality test

The author critically examines the organising principle of the affirmative action provisions of the Employment Equity Act (or EEA), as well as the implications of the recent judgment by the Constitutional Court in its first case involving the application of affirmative action in the employment context (and in terms of the EEA) – SAPS v Solidarity obo Barnard. While reiterating the need for restitutionary measures such as affirmative action in South Africa, the author concludes – probably quite controversially - that the EEA's treatment of affirmative action has nothing to do with the equality right in the Bill of Rights, and that the Act pursues a different (and omnipresent) social engineering agenda by the state. The author calls for this realisation to prompt future affirmative action cases arising from the application of this Act to be removed from the scheme of (and potential defences available under) the equality jurisprudence, and for the courts to critically interrogate the constitutionality of the EEA's affirmative action scheme within its own context. The author believes that Chapter III of the Act is unconstitutional in this sense, and he calls for the scrapping of its provisions. He also calls for a (more) constitutionallycompliant exposition from the Constitutional Court of the parameters of legitimate affirmative action under the Bill of Rights, and adds his voice to the numerous calls for reconsideration of the "rationality test" expounded in Minister of Finance v van Heerden. More generally, the author considers the apparently all-pervasive application of the government ideology of the pursuit of demographic representivity in "transformation" of employment and other contexts (expressing grave doubts about its constitutionality along the way). This article forms Part 1 of this piece and the author considers the constitutional requirements for a legitimate affirmative action programme or measure. He then examines the affirmative action scheme of the Employment Equity Act, and explains his views on why such scheme is, in fact, unconstitutional. In Part 2 of this piece (which follows in this edition), the author continues to critically evaluate the Constitutional Court judgment in the Barnard case, and he highlights the biggest areas of disappointment of this judgment within the context of South Africa's equality jurisprudence. After a very brief consideration of the recent amendments to the Employment Equity Act, the author concludes by providing reasons why the Act's approach to affirmative action needs to be rejected, and soon.