South Africa’s National Gender Machinery

• Jurisdiction: South Africa
• Published date: 15 August 2019
• Pages: 243-272
• Citation: 2005 Acta Juridica 243
• Author: Rashida Manjoo
• Date: 15 August 2019

South Africa’s National Gender Machinery

RASHIDA MANJOO*

Commission for Gender Equality

I INTRODUCTION

1

Any attempt to capture the processes and diff‌iculties faced by a

developing country, pre- and post-democracy, in its quest to redress

inequalities and achieve the twin goals of gender equality and the

emancipation of women, will necessarily be both factual and subjective.

Women’s activism in South Africa is closely intertwined with the

complex political history of resistance. The inherited legacy of the past,

particularly for black women, includes oppression and discrimination

based on gender but also on factors such as race, class, religion, ethnicity

and geographic location. These factors have all played a role in shaping

women’s struggles against oppression and discrimination. It has been

argued that race and class divisions have differentially shaped the political

consciousness of women. For example, white middle-class women’s

struggles were largely focused on issues of political equality and their legal

status, while the political struggles for black women involved claims for

political and economic equality within the transformation of the state.

2

The task of redressing systemic structural discrimination in general and

gender discrimination in particular, required a multi-pronged approach

by South African activists. The approaches included the constitutionalisa-

tion of gender equality and non-sexism, aff‌irmative action measures and

also setting up structures and systems to address gender equality and the

advancement of women.

The existing international discourse and vision was one of promotion

of the concept of National Gender Machineries (NGM), as one

mechanism to address women’s inequalities. The vision was to develop

structures, mechanisms and strategies for achieving equality for women

in all spheres of life, both private and public. The United Nations Decade

for Women (1975–1985) had also led to demands for the generation of

data on the status of women, for policies to address women’s needs in

development, and also for setting up national machinery to promote

women’s integration into development. The ‘Forward-Looking Strate-

* BA LLB LLM (Natal); Research Associate, Law, Race and Gender Research Unit,

University of Cape Town; Member,Commission for Gender Equality.

1

The historical overview is drawn from a paper presented at a Womenand Peace-building

seminar in Sri Lanka to be published in 2005 by the Muslim Women’s Research and Action

Forum, Colombo.

2

C Albertyn ‘Women and the transition to democracy in SouthAfrica’ in C Murray (ed)

Gender and the New South African Legal Order (1994) 42.

243

2005 Acta Juridica 243

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gies for the Advancement of Women’ document, which was adopted at

the World Conference to Review andAppraise the Achievements of the

United Nations Decade of the Women: Equality, Development and

Peace in 1985, also called on governments to establish appropriate

government machinery for monitoring and improving the status of

women. The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action adopted at

the World Conference on Human Rights in 1993 urged ‘governments,

institutions, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations to

intensify their efforts for the protection and promotion of human rights

of women and the girl-child’. The 1995 ‘Beijing Platform of Action’,

Strategic objective H, similarly calls on governments to create and

strengthen national mechanisms for the advancement of women;

integrate gender perspectives in legislation, public policies, programmes

and projects; and to generate and disseminate gender disaggregated data

and information for planning and evaluation.

3

This vision was followed

by activists in South Africa.

This article does not claim to be a full analysis of the success or failure

of South Africa’s NGM, but is rather a history of developments in the

quest for gender equality, and also the personal experiences of women

activists. Its focus is on the progress of the development of the NGM

ref‌lected in policy documents, assessments of progress and academic

analyses of the situation. It draws on the f‌irst-hand experience of activists

to a limited extent only. This limits the analysis to some extent as does the

fact that it is written by a lawyer and not an anthropologist or sociologist.

The other limitations include a recognition that it is diff‌icult to judge

whether the twin goals of gender equality and women’s emancipation,

through the setting up of gender structures, are a realistic outcome after

approximately eight years of existence; and a realistic approach that

recognizes the impact of deeply embedded structural and systemic

challenges that existed pre-1994 and continue to exist in a rapidly

changing climate of political and economic change. Despite such

limitations, the paper attempts to make visible numerous relevant

analyses which resonate and which also provide the basis for some

conclusions.

In a 1994 paper, Albertyn

4

succinctly captures both the interplay

between law, gender, race and power in the transition to democracy, and

also the extent to which the form and content of national liberation and

women’s struggles inf‌luenced the political and legal framework that was

3

The Off‌ice on the Status of Women ‘Discussion Document:Celebrating 10 Years of

Freedom: Women Building a Better South Africa and a Better World: A review of South

Africa’s progress in achieving its commitments to the United Nations Beijing Platform of

Action’ (November 2004).

4

Albertyn (n 2) 39–63.

244 ADVANCING WOMEN’S RIGHTS

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