Organising against gender violence in South Africa

Journal of Southern African Studies

Volumn 32, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 145-163

  Britton, Hannah ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

GENDER RELATIONS; PATRIARCHY; SEXUAL BEHAVIOR; VIOLENCE; WOMENS ORGANIZATION; WOMENS STATUS;

AFRICA; SOUTH AFRICA; SOUTHERN AFRICA; SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA;

EID: 33644863737     PISSN: 03057070     EISSN: 14653893     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/03057070500493852     Document Type: Article

References (59)

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2. P. Scully, 'Rape, Race, and Colonial Culture: The Sexual Politics of Identity in the Nineteenth-Century Cape Colony, South Africa', The American Historical Review, 100, 2 (1995), pp. 335-59.
3. D. Volman, 'The Militarization of Africa', in M. Turshen and C. Twagiramariya (eds), What Women do in Wartime: Gender and Conflict in Africa (New York, Zed Books, 1998), pp. 150-62.
4. 'Land Where a Woman is Raped Every 83 Seconds', Times Online, 14 October 2004, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1308078,00.html. Accessed 21 October 2004.
5. South African Police Services, Crime Statistics (2004), http://www.saps.gov.za/statistics/reports/crimestats/2004/categories.htm. Accessed 21 October 2004.
6. P. Govender, D. Budlender, and N. Madlala, Beijing Conference Report: 1994. Country Report on the Status of South African Women (Pretoria, Office of the President, 2004).
7. 'Land Where a Woman is Raped Every 83 Seconds'. P. Govender. Draft Report on Violence Hearings. Ad Hoc Joint Committee on Improvement of Quality of Life and Status of Women, Parliament of South Africa (Cape Town, Government Printers, 1998).
8. J. Fedler, S. Motara, and N.P. Webster, 'Beyond the Facelift: The Legal System's Need for a Change of Heart', in Y.J. Park, J. Fedler, and Z. Dangor (eds), Reclaiming Women's Spaces: New Perspectives on Violence Against Women and Sheltering in South Africa (Johannesburg, Nissa, 2000), pp. 121-48.
9. The Rape Crisis Website (2001) Cape Town, South Africa. http://www.rapecrisis.org.za/.
10. Ibid.
11. 'Rape has Become a Sickening Way of Life in Our Land', The Sunday Independent, 26 September 2004, http://www.sundayindependent.co.za. Accessed 21 October 2004.
12. 'When is Good News Bad News?', ANC Today, 4, 39 (October 2004), pp. 1-7. http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/anctoday/2004/at39.htm#preslet. Accessed 21 October 2004.
13. C. Walker, Women and Resistance in South Africa (Cape Town, David Philip, 1991).
14. In accordance with the regulations of the Institutional Review Boards of Syracuse University and Mississippi State University, all interviews were conducted in English and all participants and organisations are given pseudonyms to protect their confidentiality. Given that most NGOs and CBOs are deeply dependent upon the government for funding, it was essential that the names of the organisations remain protected. I wish to thank IDASA in South Africa for hosting this research, Mississippi State University for funding the 2003 research, Robert Miles of Mississippi State University for assistance in the background research on violence against women, and the comments of the two anonymous reviewers and the three editors from JSAS.
15. K. Beckwith, 'Beyond Compare? Women's Movements in Comparative Perspective', European Journal of Political Research, 37, 4 (June 2000), pp. 431-68.
16. See T. Maitse, 'Revealing Silence: Voices from South Africa', in S. Jacobs, R. Jacobson and J. Marchbank, States of Conflict: Gender, Violence, and Resistance (New York, Zed Books, 2000), pp. 199-214.
17. For a discussion of these patterns in the colonial period, see, for example, P. Scully, Liberating the Family? Gender and British Slave Emancipation in the Rural Western Cape, South Africa, 1823-1853 (Cape Town, David Philip, 1997).
18. S. Swart, '"Man, Gun and Horse": Hard Right Afrikaner Masculine Identity in Post-Apartheid South Africa', in R. Morrell (ed.), Changing Men in Southern Africa (Pietermaritzburg, University of Natal Press, 2001), p. 77.
19. Ibid.
20. See for example B. Schmidt, Peasants, Traders and Wives: Shona Women in the History of Zimbabwe, 1870-1939 (Portsmouth, NH, Heinemann, 1992).
21. Also see H. Bradford, A Taste of Freedom: The ICU in Rural South Africa, 1924-1930 (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1987).
22. See D. Gaitskell and E. Unterhalter, 'Mothers of the Nation: A Comparative Analysis of Nation, Race and Motherhood in Afrikaner Nationalism and the African National Congress', in N. Yuval-Davis and F. Anthias (eds), Woman-Nation-State (New York, St. Martin's Press, 1989), pp. 58-78.
23. See also, B. Bozzoli, 'Marxism, Feminism and South African Studies', Journal of Southern African Studies, 9, 2 (1983), pp. 139-71
24. and B. Goldblatt and S. Meintjes, 'South African Women Demand the Truth', in Turshen and Twagiramariya (eds), What Women Do in Wartime.
25. For a discussion of race and maternity during this period, see P. Scully, 'White Maternity and Black Infancy: The Rhetoric of Race in the South African Women's Suffrage Movement, 1895-1930', in I. Fletcher, L. Mayhall, and P. Levine, Women's Suffrage in the British Empire: Citizenship, Nation and Race (New York, Routledge, 2000), pp. 68-84.
26. For a discussion of the role of gender, religion and race in the creation of femininities, see D. Gaitskell, 'Devout Domesticity? A Century of African Women's Christianity in South Africa', in C. Walker, Women and Gender in Southern Africa to 1945 (Cape Town, David Philip, 1990), pp. 33-47.
27. J. Wells, We Now Demand: The History of Women's Resistance to Pass Laws in South Africa (Johannesburg, Witwatersrand University Press, 1993).
28. Goldblatt and Meintjes, 'South African Women Demand the Truth', pp. 27-61.
29. TRC Final Report: http://www.info.gov.za/otherdocs/2003/trc/rep.pdf (accessed 20 June 2005).
30. See also, for instance, M. Burton, 'Making Moral Judgements', in C. Villa-Vicencio and W. Verwoerd, Looking Back, Reaching Forward: Reflections on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa (New York, Zed Books, 2000), pp. 77-85.
31. T. Shikola, 'We Left Our Shoes Behind', in Turshen and Twagiramariya (eds), What Women do in Wartime, pp. 138-49.
32. http://www.doj.gov.za/trc/ (accessed 20 June 2005).
33. TRC Final Report: http://www.info.gov.za/otherdocs/2003/trc/rep.pdf (accessed 20 June 2005).
34. D. Foster, 'What Makes a Perpetrator', in Villa-Vicencio and Verwoerd (eds), Looking Back, Reaching Forward, pp. 219-29.
35. TRC, Final Report.
36. R. Morrell, 'The Times of Change: Men and Masculinity in South Africa', in R. Morrell (ed.), Changing Men in Southern Africa (Pietermaritzburg, University of Natal Press, 2001), pp. 4, 26.
37. See also C. Campbell, '"Going Underground and Going After Women": Masculinity and HIV Transmission amongst Black Workers on the Gold Mines', in Morrell (ed.), Changing Men, pp. 275-86. Campbell has identified the nuanced way in which masculine identity infuses sexual practices within the South African gold mine culture. Mine workers are faced with daily life-threatening situations, and Campbell finds men who feel they have little control over their well-being feel powerless. While not addressing issues of gender-based violence per se, Campbell's research shows how certain forms of masculinity put pleasure above self-preservation and foster macho behaviour to assert power within powerless.
38. J. Cock, 'Gun Violence and Masculinity in Contemporary South Africa', in Morrell (ed.), Changing Men, pp. 43-55.
39. Ibid., p. 47.
40. M. Turshen, 'Women's War Stories', in Turshen and Twagiramariya (eds), What Women do in Wartime, pp. 1-26.
41. Morrell, pp. 26-9.
42. In 2005, the total percentage of women in South Africa's parliament consists of 32.8% women in the National Assembly, the lower house, and 33.3% women in the National Council of Provinces, the upper house. For a full discussion of women in office in South Africa, see H. Britton, Women in the South African Parliament: From Resistance to Governance (Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 2005).
43. Interview conducted by the author, Cape Town, 12 June 2003.
44. The article deals primarily with four organisations in Cape Town and four in the Pretoria/Johannesburg area. Given the continued sensitivity of the mission and political positioning of these organisations, the real names of the groups and the names of the individuals interviewed must remain confidential, pursuant to the Human Subjects Agreements each of the participants signed before participating in this study. Seven of the eight groups regularly seek government funding or contracts, and all eight are in competition for private sources of funding. There are thus tangible political, financial and material implications for their organisational survival, that precludes my revealing which organisations participated in this study. Confidentiality is essential given the importance of ensuring the public trust within this population, maintaining the ethics of the broader research community and fostering the ability of future researchers to work with these groups.
45. G. Waylen, 'Women and Democratization: Conceptualizing Gender Relations in Transition Politics', World Politics, 46, 3 (April 1994), pp. 327-54.
46. Interview conducted by the author, Cape Town, June 2003.
47. I wish to thank one of the anonymous reviewers of this article for this phrase.
48. Interview conducted by the author, Pretoria, July 2003.
49. K. Dunkle, 'Gender-Based Violence, Relationship Power, and Risk of HIV Infection in Women Attending Antenatal Clinics in South Africa', The Lancet, 1 (May 2004), pp. 1,415-21.
50. Interview conducted by the author, Johannesburg, July 2003.
51. One programme in South Africa targets men exclusively in the fight to end gender-based violence, see: D. Peacock and A. Levack, 'The Men as Partners Program in South Africa: Reaching Men to End Gender-Based Violence and Promote Sexual and Reproductive Health', International Journal of Men's Health, 3, 3 (Fall 2004), pp. 173-89.
52. This organisation is the one mentioned earlier led by Grace.
53. Interview conducted by the author, Cape Town, June 2003.
54. Cock, 'Gun Violence and Masculinity in Contemporary South Africa', p. 54.
55. Interview conducted by the author, Cape Town, 12 June 2003.
56. Interview conducted by the author, Cape Town, 11 June 2003.
57. Interview conducted by the author, Cape Town, June 2003.
58. Interview conducted by the author, Pretoria, July 2003.
59. Interview conducted by the author, Cape Town, June 2003.