True women’s liberation depends on sensible redistribution of power

There is a narrative that the majority of female politicians the world over enter politics and are catapulted into senior positions because of their relationships with males in high office.

Political commentators were abuzz with the narrative that Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma lost her bid to lead the ANC and South Africa at Nasrec in 2017 because she would be an extension of her former husband, Jacob Zuma.

In America, it was said Hillary Clinton lost her bid to become president because it would simply have replicated husband Bill Clinton’s reign.

There was also concern that Cuban feminist movement leader Wilma Espin, wife of former Cuban President Raul Castro, compromised women’s autonomous position in the country as she always took instructions from her husband.

The ANC Women’s League, in particular, chooses to be a feminist organisation when it suits them.

The ANCWL is an extension of the ANC and plays second fiddle to the male-dominated structures, what Sarah Longwe calls ‘honorary males’.

When the liberation movement was unbanned in 1990, a space for gender struggles was created. Women were supposed to influence the process of constitutional negotiation through which major gains in gender equality were supposed to be achieved.

They were meant to clearly define and articulate their interests, and ensure the structures that perpetuated their disadvantages were radically transformed.

The outcome of the constitutional battle of the early 90s should have resulted, among other things, in the inclusion of clearly defined time frames with regard to the complete transformation of a patriarchal institution that continued to put women in disadvantageous positions – even today.

Despite the inclusion of the equality clause in the Bill of Rights, which guaranteed women protection from discrimination on the basis of gender and the establishment of a Commission on Gender Equality (CGE), there has been little progress.

Since the dawn of democracy the majority of women, especially rural women, have little or no access to the benefits of democracy, either by way of involvement in decisionmaking processes or by access to resources and benefits.

There is a rhetoric, especially by so-called progressive women’s organisations linked to the ANCWL that if the South African government wants to effectively eradicate poverty, independent access and control over land and other resources by women as a group is an appropriate strategy.

In their arguments, the definition of economic empowerment entails the capacity for women to engage in independent income-generating activities.

The argument is that financial dependence equates to women subordination.

The support that women need is therefore access to credit facilities, physical space to operate their economic activities and business management skills. This is precisely my problem.

In my view this approach carries an element of risk for the very audience it is intended. Men hold economic power over women. To achieve a balance and cohesive gender relationship, the holders of power will have to relinquish power for the powerless to gain power.

The redistribution of power, therefore, entails a conflict situation in which women will have to challenge the existing power base and men will have to be ‘convinced to renegotiate’.

The question is, are women, particularly in the context of poor rural women everywhere in the country, equipped to challenge these power structures?

Given the current state of rural economies, will autonomous access to resources alleviate poverty or contribute to the deterioration of family units?

I want to argue that targeting women as a group in isolation from their husbands or families will undermine traditional social values and may jeopardise women’s traditional social safety nets, and may in fact increase women’s vulnerability.

Autonomous access to resources may be advantageous for women in the short term, but may not be adequate as an empowerment vehicle for women.

Women’s disadvantaged position is not only due to lack of resources but to the social structures and relations that perpetuate their disadvantage to the advantage of men.

Improving women’s social mobility should not only involve poverty reduction strategies or independent access to agrarian economies, but should equally involve the redistribution of power.

The barriers that women face are mostly gender-related.

Disrupting the current existing form of protection through ad hoc and piecemeal actions can only jeopardise women’s position and equally attract radical reaction from traditional institutional structures. Jeopardising these safety nets without finding an alternative is not in the best interest of women.

What becomes critical here is the understanding that empowerment programmes will benefit women only if women’s domestic responsibilities are also addressed.

Similarly, making more resources accessible to women would have greater transformation potential for their position within the family than would be creating women-only income generating projects, which according to Naila Kabeer (1995) ‘have a poor record of success’. It should be stressed that women are empowered when barriers that bar them from actualising their maximum potential are removed.

*Dr Funokwakhe Cedric Xulu was the first recipient of the Unilever Nelson Mandela Scholarship. He studied for his Masters degree in development studies at Sussex University in London and earned his Doctorate (Philosophy in Development Studies) at Glasgow University, Scotland

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