The representation of women in ZANU and ZAPU propaganda during the Zimbabwe War of Liberation

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article considers the ways in which women were presented in the propaganda of ZANU and ZAPU during the conflict in Rhodesia. In doing this it seeks to build upon existing studies of women, however with a greater focus upon the media output of the nationalist organisations than has previously been the case. In doing so, it shows how ZANU and ZAPU sought to use the experiences of women for their own purposes, as well as how they developed a particular form of public feminist thought, rooted outside that in the West. It also highlights the tensions which existed within the propaganda and ideology of the two groups, whereby women had to be both powerless victims and at the same time significant political and military agents. In doing this it shows how it was difficult for them to create a single narrative of women’s liberation during the Zimbabwe Liberation War.