GENDER IDEOLOGY AND TOWNSHIP POLITICS IN THE 1980's

Abstract

DURING THE 1980'S political organisation, protest and conflict occurred on an unprecedented scale and duration in South Africa's townships. This has given rise to an extensive literature, with a bibliography on the topic listing almost five hundred artides, reports, etc. (Seekings, 1991). But sensitivity to gender is not a strong feature of this literature (my own work induded). Less than ten of these five hundred focus primarily on the stuggles of women. More importantly, most of the rest neglect directly genderrelated issues altogether. Protesters and other active participants in organisation and overt conflict have for the most part been identified as the 'people', the 'community', 'workers', 'youth', 'township residents', or eveni the 'masses' all gender-blind categories. A closer examination of the organisations and protests involved suggests that most protesters, in whichever category, were in fact men. But the apparently relatively low participation of women raises, rather than removes important questions from the agenda. Why were women less prominently involved? Were women involved in some organisations, at some time, or in some areas more than others? Were particular groups of women more active? What forms of action were women involved in? Did they have any discrete impact as women? This paper attempts a preliminary examination of the involvement of township women in political organisation and activity, drawing primarily on the fragmentary material contained in existing secondary sources. It is largely speculative, providing a focu s for continued research, and does not even tentatively answer all the questions above. I examine the forms of political organisation and action in which women were and were not involved, suggesting that there are important shifts in the pattern of women's participation, and that these were related to general changes in township politics in combination with the constraints imposed by patriarchal gender ideologies and, to a lesser extent, the division of domestic labour. In summary, women mobilised extensively over a range of civic issues, but were largely 'demobilised' as township politics came to revolve around violent confrontation. Women were rarely pronmnent in the so-called 'youth'. The most visible role played by women was the more limited role of peacemaker.