In this paper I propose that transgressive interpretations of Christian iconography provide a valuable strategy for contemporary women artists to engage with perceived social inequalities in post-apartheid South Africa. South Africa’s new constitution is one of the most progressive in the world, with legislation banning all forms of discrimination, including gender-based discrimination. Despite the constitutional guarantee of freedoms indicated in the excerpt above, however, there are ongoing injustices and inequalities, with both women (particularly rural women) and the gay community facing continuing violence, intolerance, and the threat of political and social suppression, due largely to patriarchal traditionalism and prejudice. In addition, continuous reports of domestic violence against women and children and the highest number of rapes reported for any country not currently engaged in armed conflict1 raise doubts about the implementation of the constitution and the effects of legislation impacting on lived experience. I would argue, therefore, that in South Africa today feminist strategies exposing patriarchal controls are still a necessary response to local conditions. The examples by Diane Victor and Tracey Rose,2 discussed in this paper, function as a catalyst for social change by exposing the inherent unequal power relations that have been promoted and normalized through centuries of Christian imagery. They approach Christian imagery using parody and satire to disturb complacent viewing, rather than for the purposes of indicating any devoutness on the part of their makers. Parody works through a system of quotation or repetition. It is a form of self reference that has become a popular aspect of postmodern artworks as the reuse of a work in another context automatically carries the nuances of that work from its original manifestation, while simultaneously imbuing it with new meaning in its borrowed form. Parody thus allows for conceptual richness in works of art through this layering, which Linda Hutcheon (1985:6) has defined succinctly as “repetition with critical distance, which marks difference rather than similarity” or “imitation characterized by ironic inversion.” The kind of parody that Hutcheon (1985:11) identifies as crucial in contemporary artworks is “an integrated structural modeling process of revising, replaying, inverting, and ‘trans-contextualizing’ previous works of art.” This does not rely on mere quotation or imitation but infers building up layered associative meanings that resonate with each other and with the original text through ironic “trans-contextualization” with each coded discourse. Hutcheon (ibid., p. 38–40) notes that parody implies intent on the part of the artist; it functions as a form of “authorized transgression” (ibid., p. 104) where the author/artist acknowledges the contribution of the original work and its meaning in the ultimate understanding of the parody, thus clearly differentiating parody from plagiarism. This is why it is also vitally important for the functioning of parody that the viewer has knowledge of the original. In fact, the success of parody is dependent on a culturally sophisticated viewer who is able to identify the textual references and understand the ironic inversions with which they are employed. Gender and South African Art