Introduction
In history, women have often been oppressed by patriarchal systems. The fight for women to gain the same social, economic and political position as men is difficult, as it seems they need to act in the right place in the right moment to make a difference. In 2016, feminism and women activists have raised their voice to end the oppression of women worldwide, and in many Western countries the steps that was made improved the position of many women. It is interesting to look at another, non-western place to see how women in history have fought for equality. South Africa’s transitional period in the 1990’s has always been a topic of many researches, but one of the things that are not often mentioned is the role that women have played. This paper will investigate the position of women before, during and after the transitioning period in South Africa during the 1990’s. With support of four posters as primary sources, this paper illustrates how women mobilized each other to stand up for their rights, use their rights and their vote to end the oppression of women. Linked to this oppression is violence against women, it is interesting to see how the campaign calling on women to use their vote to stamp of violence against women ran at the same time as posters informing women on what to do if they had been a victim of violence. This is the reason that this paper investigates the importance of the campaigns, with the posters as an example, that tried to inform and mobilize women in 1990’s South Africa. The paper starts with explaining the primary sources, followed by an explanation of social revolutions. After this, the French revolution will serve as an example case to explain social revolutions. Thirdly, the paper continues with the position of women before, during and after the 1990’s. The paper ends with a small conclusion.
Posters to mobilize women
The primary sources used for this research stem from the 90’s. They are two types of posters. One is a series of posters, the other one is related but not from the same series. In this part of the research the paper explains the posters with the information on the posters themselves and information that could be found about the organizations or campaign behind the posters.
The first series of posters focusses on informing women about their rights in case they experience of have experienced violence.
The organizations behind these posters are NICRO (National Institute for Crime Prevention and the Reintegration of Offenders) and Lawyers for human rights. NICRO is a still existing non-governmental organization which now specializes in social crime prevention, offender reintegration, boasting human rights and more. Lawyers for Human Rights also is a non-governmental organization who focuses on strives to promote awareness, protection and enforcement of legal and human rights through the creation of a human rights culture. Lawyers for Human Right was founded in 1979 and fought oppression and abuse of human rights under the apartheid regime. Later, Lawyers for Human rights helped in the transition to democracy. The three “know your rights” posters focus on battering, rape and sexual harassment. The colorful posters portray illustrations of both white women and women of color, suggesting that it was a problem not only facing women of color. Each poster includes an in-depth explanation of what women can do and what rights they have if they have suffered one of the three crimes, focusing on both legal and social steps they can take. The posters encourage women to step forward if they have experienced violence.
The other poster, which is not from the same series, is a poster that reads “Stamp out woman abuse with your vote! What’s your party doing to stop violence against women?”.
Image 4. “Stamp out woman abuse with your vote!” poster, made by Women’s Media Watch. Found at the International Institute for Social History.
The organization behind this poster is called Women’s Media Watch. The organization was found in 1995 in Cape Town, South Africa (Sabanes & Anand, sd). The organization held media and gender awareness workshops, media monitoring, advocacy, activism and produced newsletters, documentaries and radio programs on equal opportunities for women in the media (Sabanes & Anand, sd).
On the poster, a woman of color is illustrated, with her foot slightly in the air. On her shoe, there is a big red cross, most likely referring to the use of the words ‘stamp out’. This poster clearly also relates back to violence against women. Is tries to activate women to use their right to vote to vote for a party that stands up for their safety and well-being. In contrast with the other posters of the “know your rights” series, where women have already become the victims of violence and are reminded of their rights on what to do after, this poster reminds women of their power and their ability to change the situation in general.
It is interesting to use these posters to get an understanding of the situation of women in South Africa before, during and after the 90’s of the last century. The posters were clearly meant to address women. In the first series of posters it seems to be both women of color and white women, the second poster only displays a woman of color. The need for these posters can indicate two things, namely number one that women didn’t know or understand what their rights were in case of violence and two women were not actively trying to change this situation, although with the transition to a democracy they had the change do to so.
To understand the use of these posters this paper continues by first looking at the background of social revolutions, followed by the French revolution as an example of a social revolution. After this, a small paragraph about women in history and how they got ignored. Furthermore, the main part of the research about women in South Africa before, during and after the 1990’s. In this last part, the posters will be referred to, to see how they might’ve added to the change in the social system in South Africa.
Social Revolutions
Before going into depth on what exactly took place in the 1990’s in South Africa, and especially what role women had, it is important to distinguish between different types of revolutions. The struggle for women to stand up, claim their rights and with that stop violence against women can be categorized as a social revolution. A social revolution involves a shift in power (Tiruneh, 2014). It is an essential shift in society as before a social revolution a group of people feel left out in the current system. If people don’t believe in the legitimacy of the current social and/or political order they often seek for change of their own social and/or political position. A social revolution seeks for serious political and/or social and/or economic changes (Tiruneh, 2014).
History shows us that social revolutions can occur in different forms and can be caused by different things. One of the reasons for a revolution to happen is when the government is weak, because it is not functioning well (Tiruneh, 2014). This is an opportunity for individuals or groups who are unhappy about their social position to ‘take over’ or to start the revolution. Furthermore, another reason why a social revolution might take place is class struggle (Tiruneh, 2014). This is another reason for groups to be unhappy about their current position. Class struggle is the struggle of people of one social class who have different opportunities and a different access to resources than people from another social class. A society in which there is a lot of inequality will most likely harbor groups of people that feel that they are overlooked. This discontent with their place in the system can also lead to a revolution.
Social revolutions – The French Revolution
To understand social revolutions this paper uses the famous French Revolution as an example case. Although the goals, groups and reasons are different from the South African women, and the revolution was not because of gender inequality, it does give a good understanding of how a social revolution works and can change a system (Hunt, 2015).
The French Revolution took place in the late 18th century, with the year 1789 marking its clear beginning (Hunt, 2015). At this time, France was a monarchy. King Louis XVI was extremely powerful and rich, spending money with no discretion. This left the country in a difficult position. The government was in high debts and needed to implement an unfair tax system (Hunt, 2015). The majority of people were already living in great hunger and poverty, but the new tax system made poor farmers and peasants pay high taxes, often even more than the noblemen. The bottom-up revolution asked for equal rights and social positions. Common people started to come together, demanding representation in the political system of France. This eventually led to the forming of the third estate, where ordinary people joint forces to gain equal representation (Hunt, 2015). This third estate was made up of a big part of the French population, but had almost no power to make changes in the country. As the French Revolution progressed, the revolutionaries generated at least three different models for a modern form of political authority (Hunt, 2015). In the first model, they laid the foundation for a democratic and representative government, by abolishing the feudal system, overthrowing the noble titles and declaring the ‘rights of man’ (Hunt, 2015). For the second model, they arrested and executed opponents, carried out a cultural revolution (de-Christianization and political reeducation), creating a blueprint for a totalitarian government (Hunt, 2015). At last, Napoleon Bonaparte created the third model, which was a paternalist, authoritarian government with a strong military order (Hunt, 2015).
The French date of the end of the French revolution is widely debated. Some mark it in 1794 with the fall of Robespierre, a politician at the front of the revolution. Others mark it with the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1799, or when he established his empire in 1804 or when he was finally defeated in Waterloo in 1815.
Women in South Africa before, during and after the transition to democracy
The first question to be asked is what led to the situation in which campaigns like the once of the posters were necessary in South Africa? The paper continues with a small overview of the situation of women in South Africa before, during and after the 1990’s transition.
In the years before the transition in the 1990’s, women in South-Africa were widely suppressed, they were not only “struggling against their class oppressors and the state, but also against the patriarchal system embedded in family structures” (Bradford, 1987) Women were defined in particular roles within the family, namely as a mother, wife, daughter or sister (The Malibongwe collection as cited in Hetherington, 1993). When capitalism came to South-Africa, the sex-based division of labor was incorporated to create complementary roles for women, in the form of reproduction, production and consumption (Walker, 1979). Especially black women in small towns were mostly responsible for the family, rather than working a full-time job (Wells, 1987 as cited in Hetherington, 1993).
The South African men had, besides full control over the women because of the economic dependence of those women on them, also full financial control over the wages women would get if they could work (Bradford, 1987). As explained before, this full dependence of women on men goes hand in hand with violence against women, as it influences the social position of women and they are not seen as equals (Yawitch, 1978). Desperately
In the 1990’s South-Africa went through a democratic transition, leaving the apartheid regime behind. Black women never had the right to vote until 1994, and after Nelson Mandela was freed from prison, the negotiations began to have democratic election in which all people, including black people, would be able to vote. Up until the 1990’s, anti-apartheid activists rejected the feminist concerns, and didn’t want gender inequality to be part of the struggle towards an anti-apartheid regime (Seidman, 1999), as they believed this would undermine the true cause of creating racial justice. This led to the initial discussions on the democratic transition of South Africa being between the authoritarian white-supremacist government and the democratic opposition, both existing almost entirely of males (Seidman, 1999). Gender issues were not mentioned and the focus was entirely on racial and economic inequalities (Seidman, 1999). Not only men but also women ignored gender issues in the beginning stages of the transition. They avoided the topic, as they feared that it would create internal divisions in the anti-apartheid movement. They were also scared for the response of male anti-apartheid activists, as they had gotten physical threats when raising questions concerning gender (interview with three ANC women league officers, May 1993 as mentioned in Seidman, 1999). In the case that women would be mentioned by the anti-apartheid activists; this would be in the form of mothers and wives. Their vision was a domestic position for black women rather than, like everyone else, autonomous citizenship and political participation as gendered individuals (Gaitskell and Unterhalter 1989; McClintock 1993; Walker, 1982 as cited in Seidman, 1999). Nevertheless, during the first half of the 1990’s this vision changed and gender issues were more and more raised by women activists. During the forming of a new, democratic South Africa, it would be the moment to include gender equality. Feminist intellectuals argued that if gender concerns were not considered now, the new political system would most likely re-create and reinforce to same inequality as before (Seidman, 1999). Also, the women activists began to create forums especially for women, to get them to participate in grassroot movements against apartheid (Seidman, 1999). These grassroot organizations created a new public for gender concerns within the anti-apartheid movement (Seidman, 1999). This grassroot mobilization is also what the primary source material illustrates. The “know your rights” posters are clearly used to remind women of their rights, encouraging them not to stay silent and stand up against women abuse. Although not entirely in line with the political debate in the 1990’s, the posters do illustrate that women started standing up against the patriarch and that, besides the fight to end apartheid, they also had to fight against systematic oppression by the males, which outed itself in the form of violence (Yawitch, 1978). A survey done by The National Trauma Research Programme in 1991 and 1992, showed that the most likely place for women to get assaulted would be in her own home (The National Trauma Research Programme of the South African Medical Research Council, 1994). A survey in 1993 showed the difficulties of determining the exact number of victims of domestic violence, as women didn’t tend to seek help besides their own family and friends. Of the 111 women interviewed, only 50% sought help from their family, 22% sought help from friends or neighbors, 12% went to church, 8% went to street committees or councils, 6% went to the police and only 2% went to social workers (Nina, D. and Stavrou, S., 1994). Furthermore, the other poster “Stamp out women abuse” is a clear example of women activists trying to mobilize women to use their vote to better their own social position and stop violence against women. As explained earlier, women in South Africa began to understand the need for gender equality, especially as the transition period would be the time to raise those issues and challenge them. The poster motivates women to use their vote and voice to change the position of women across South-Africa, instead of not doing anything.
The question that remains is, did the position of women change after the 1994 elections? We have seen that the campaigns, like the posters that were used for this research, tried to mobilize women. Interesting now is to look at the situation in South Africa in the years after the elections and democratic transition. Statistics show that women have made a lot of progress on the political field in South Africa. Before the democratic transition in 1994, the parliament consisted out of a low 2.7% women. Afterwards, 41% of the ministers were women, 47% of the deputy ministers were women and 41% of the National Assembly was women (Brand South Africa, 2016). This shows that although the gender issue was first widely ignored in the anti-apartheid debate, women did succeed in making their voices heard. The new government has taken steps to improve the position of women and promote gender equality (Brand South Africa, 2016). These numbers placed South Africa in the top 10 in terms of women representation (Brand South Africa, 2016).
However, less improved is the safety of women from violence. South Africa comes in second with almost the highest rate of rape in the world. In 2012 more than 64000 reports were filed on sexual assault, according to the statistics of the South African police service (Gouws, 2014). This shows that, although women are more represented in South Africa, the oppression of women in the form of violence is still very present. The Zuma rape trial is a good illustration of how South African women are still perceived as being worth less. Their experiences of rape are invalidated, they are ridiculed and victimized and need to move because of the fear of being attacked or even killed (Gouws, 2014). Women who live in poverty don’t have the means to get access to a lawyer, unless the State provides them with money, and also don’t have the money to pursue path through different levels of the court system (Gouws, 2014).
Conclusion
To conclude, it appears to be the case that the South African women did indeed change their social position. In the years leading up to the 1990’s women were systematically economically, politically and socially suppressed, which can also be related back to the high rates of violence against women. At the very beginning of the democratic transition both men and women were not willing to introduce gender issues into the agenda of the anti-apartheid movement, but in the following years the women changed their opinion. Feminists and women activists started mobilizing women, remembering them of their rights trying to motivate them to vote for the party that would consider gender issues and women oppression. Posters like the “know your rights” posters served as a medium to help women deal with violence in a legal and psychological way. Linked to this are the “stamp out women abuse” posters, calling on women to start voting for parties that would have their best interest at hand. After the transitional period, women did get to play a bigger role in the government, but unfortunately violence against women has not disappeared. It seems that, although women did succeed in getting a voice and having a say in important, governmental decision making, the violence against them is harder to prevent. A reason for this could be that it is rooted in the South African culture, or that it is a backlash against women by men who feel their roles are threatened. It should be noted that this research only looked at the possible effect of these campaigns (with the posters as example illustrations) on the social position of women before and after the transition, but it cannot conclusively make any conclusions because of a lack of interviews and statistics. Nevertheless, it seems that the grassroot organizations did mobilize women, as we see that they have quite drastically changed the political environment from almost 100% men to almost 50% men and 50% women. These posters were part of these campaigns, and their effect on the women should not be ignored.