University law students with guest speakers and staff of Women Legal Centre. (Photo supplied by the Women Legal Centre).
In July, the Women’s Legal Centre held a conversation on ‘Intergenerational Reflection on Feminism and the Law as a Tool for Transformation’. This session featured speakers such as the former first female Minister of Justice and retired Ambassador, Brigitte Mabandla in her contribution to the conversation, she spoke about women activism when she was a young woman fighting for the struggle. She said that feminist activists in her time, in the early ’90s, would critisise the liberation movement where it was conceptually a jamboree of the whole idea. She added that there struggle was against oppression and this was clearly defined in women’s formations of the early years. She pointed out that their fight was about basic women’s rights in its ordinary form. ‘The ideas were not situated in the idea of feminism. In the evolution of feminism there have been many debates.’
Retired ambassador, Bridget Mabandla spoke at the last day of a week long event held by the Women Legal Centre on feminism (Photo: Kgomotso Ramotsho).
Ms Mabandla added that there were many scholars that have written even as early as the ’70s, about feminism and politics. She pointed out that female activist at the time were down to earth, in that it was about women as part of the movement against apartheid. She said that there is greater clarity now about feminism as compared to 50 years ago. She shared how after she was released from detention, she went into exile, and at that time women across the world were strictly speaking on the role of women in the struggle. She said that women’s formation was strengthened in the ’80s with a clear agenda. And in the ’90s when there was the celebration of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, women on the side lines managed to form themselves and take the discussions further about the situation of women, just broadly.
Professor Pumla Dineo Gqola started by talking about the feminism they were doing in the student movement and some of the things that they created. She said that when she started university in the 1990s, as students they were very aware of what was happening in the country at the time, with the unbanning’s. She pointed out that student organisations at the time were also getting unbanned. She said that it was an exciting time for feminists at that time as they were inheritors of a certain tradition, she pointed out that at the time they did not even realise that it came with some heaviness. Prof Gqola said there was a combination of many things that they were trying to do in their late teens and early 20s.
Professor Pumla Dineo Gqola was one of the guest speakers at the event. (Photo: Kgomotso Ramotsho.)
Prof Gqola spoke about the South African Students Congress gender subcommittee, which she described as a very interesting space at the time. But it also drove some of the limitations for feminists. She pointed out that on the one hand feminists in the women liberation movement had made it mandatory that, if one was really progressive, they had to at least commit to the women’s liberation. ‘But you started to see that progression on gender, class, race. In those meetings you start to see that some of it is just lip service,’ Prof Gqola said. She pointed out the subcommittee was then there to make sure some of the left issues were discussed, however, she said it also juniourised feminism.
Prof Gqola said that some of them formed a women’s forum at the University of Cape Town. She added that the space was vibrant, and many identified as feminists. ‘We had to think very critically about the individual and the movement.’ She pointed out that she often tells her students that one loses sight of the fact that they were not starting from the beginning, and it was clear that someone else fought first. ‘Those were important for me politically,’ Prof Gqola added.
Prof Gqola spoke about the Women’s National Coalition and the work that it had done in the political sphere. She pointed out that it allowed her to think about two things. That being a feminist and being committed to building a movement one has to work with different kinds of women. Furthermore, to think about feminist strategies. ‘I think that is the one thing we struggle with in South Africa. On the one hand, as a black person, who is also a black woman and talking about blackness in total, there is a very clear sense in which we think about power and change in majority terms and that is important for representation and all sorts of other things that the political notion of the majority is important.’
The Constitutionalism Fund’s Yasmin Sooka also spoke on naturing feminism at the event (Photo: Kgomotso Ramotsho).
Member of the Constitutionalism Fund, Yasmin Sooka, said that there are three things that can be used to nurture the new wave of feminism, listening to each other, supporting each other and solidarity. In her speech, she spoke about how her family was part of the Non-European Unity Movement and believed that there could be nothing normal in an abnormal society. ‘Our lives were completely about boycotts, and we did not go to any sport that was racialised.’ While sharing her history of how women were involved in the struggle, she mentioned two women that stood out to her who were not legal practitioners but were activist, namely Brigalia Bam and Sheena Duncan. She described them as women who through their own activism – despite not being called feminists at the time – were feminists at heart, making a difference in the lives of ordinary South Africans, and women in particular. She added that they were looking at the issues of poverty and inequality.
Ms Sooka pointed out that after Ms Mabandla became the Minister of Justice, they set up the South African Women Lawyers Association (SAWLA) and one of the projects they began to look at was to answer the question that if they said they are standing on shoulders of women giants, who were these women and where did they come from? She added that it was amazing that through research that they conducted, they discovered that they were over 15 women, not all of them legal practitioners but who had made a huge difference to the fact that women were actually able to participate in going to university and becoming legal practitioners.
Ms Sooka also mentioned Charlotte Maxeke who was a social worker at the time. She pointed out that Ms Maxeke would go to most of the courts in the country, supporting the cases of young black men and women who found themselves in trouble with the law. She said Ms Maxeke would give expert testimony at the time. She spoke about Desiree Finca, who was one of the first black female legal practitioner in South Africa. She shared the challenges that Ms Finca had to endure in her journey in the profession.
Ms Sooka spoke about the negotiations that led to the country’s democracy. She pointed that when the negotiations started, there was an issue with the fact that there was not a single woman in any of the negotiating parties. She said that the women from the African National Congress that were in exile who reached out to other women across all races in the country, then later set up the Women’s National Coalition.
Ms Sooka said that the Women’s National Coalition demanded that in every negotiating team one third of the negotiating team should be made up of women. The second demand was that if there was going to be a Constitution and Bill of Rights, there should be a gender equality cause. The third was that there should be a law on domestic violence, among other demands. At the same time there was the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action that was taking place to which many women attended across the world. She said there was a movement that was discussing advancing feminism and how to interpret feminism. How to interpret it in a way that advances the rights of women and girls. She pointed out that that was not to say it is the exclusion of men and boys. But it was perceived as a necessity to really begin to look at what was happening to women.
Ms Sooka pointed out that there was a split between white and black feminists because the struggle was class and not the issue of advancing women into positions. She said that an agreement was reached for amnesty, and that there would not be prosecution of those who were accused of apartheid crimes. The clause said that the accused would not be prosecuted for crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes.
Ms Sooka also spoke about how a school for young female legal practitioners was setup for them to undergo training then they would then be chosen to go to the bench on acting positions.
Ms Sooka added: ‘There were 200 women, I remember we were criticised by many of the male judges who said what are we trying to do creating instant judges. But do you know how many of our black compatriots in the bench forgot where did they start? They started in the same way as affirmative action judges. But they were not ready to apply that to women.’
Kgomotso Ramotsho Cert Journ (Boston) Cert Photography (Vega) is the news reporter at De Rebus.
