National liberation movements and women's liberation : A comparative study of Mozambique and South Africa

Abstract

The situation of women in post revolutionary societies of Southern Africa cannot be understood in isolation from other social realities and social structures. The social structures of Southern Africa are the result of three superimposed cultural stratifications, the traditional phase, the colonial experience and the post colonial economic and political structure. Each of these realities varies from country to country and everywhere the position of women depends very much on the interplay of these three elements. National Liberation Movements and Women's Liberation (A Comparative Study of Mozambique and South Africa) explores the relationship between women's liberation struggles and national liberation movements in two Southern African countries. In Mozambique and South Africa, nationalism and liberation wars were the fertile soil on which ‘new’ notions of the role of women budded and women's organisations took root. Women have been integral to these struggles waged and won against colonialism, racism and fascism. They have been a major force in national liberation struggles. Yet, after national liberation is achieved, the emancipation of women themselves is proving to be one of the longest struggles ever waged. Numerous factors can be cited as inhibiting the struggle for the emancipation of women. But the most important factor impeding women's emancipation through liberation struggles is the tendency to subsume women,s issues in the quest for national liberation. Usually the argument advanced is that women should not press hard for issues of concern for themselves because the time is not appropriate and that once national liberation is achieved, women's problems will necessarily be resolved and they will be emancipated, almost by default. The history of the experiences of women in Mozambique and South Africa tells a different story. The experience of Mozambican and South African women in their respective struggles shows that national liberation did not necessarily bring about women's emancipation. This situation has been the result of a lot of inconsistencies in the perspectives of FRELIMO (Front for the Liberation of Mozambique) and ANC (African National Congress) on women's oppression and liberation which has led to the continuing oppression of women in the post liberatory societies of Mozambique and South Africa. Additionally the adopting of incompatible development strategies has exacerbated their already deprived condition. The liberation struggles in Mozambique and South Africa did change some aspects of the unequal socio-economic relations between men and women within their societies which resulted in the post-liberatory government's introduction of legislations to reflect those changes. However these movements also strongly tended to see feminism as divisive to the struggle for independence. Feminism is characterised as a western bourgeois implant benefiting the urban elite and antithetical to the traditions of Africa. Vulnerable postcolonial governments have sought to rely on the discourses of tradition and Africanism to maintain their positions in dire economic and political contexts.