Women on South African Farms: Empowerment Across or Along Race and Class Divisions?

Abstract

This paper explores the role being played by two prominent women groupings in empowering farm women on South African fruit and wine farms. By focusing their efforts on farm wives and women farm workers, the Cape Women’s Forum has embarked on a process of empowering farm women across race and class divisions. This approach contrasts with that of the other group – the Women on Farms Project – in that the latter facilitates the empowerment of women farm workers only. The paper examines the activities of two groups, analyses the underlying assumptions regarding women’s shared interests guiding these divergent approaches from a feminist perspective, and identifies factors which could constrain women’s empowerment. Information on these groups was obtained by in‐depth interviews and analysis of written documents. It is suggested that liberal and socialist/Marxist feminist paradigms are particularly useful when interpreting the empowerment strategies employed by these two women’s groups. The paper concludes that, although these groups are making significant inroads into the empowerment of farm women, developments within the South African agricultural sector and the politics of international sponsorship may impede empowerment efforts in future.