Washington D.C. — On the occasion of International Women's Day, South Africa's ambassador to Washington D.C., Sheila Sisulu, granted allAfrica.com an interview about the progress - or otherwise - of South Africa's women in the post-apartheid era.
On the face of it, South Africa presents a contradictory impression: on the one hand, it has the most progressive constitution and legislative record on the African continent. Many women participate in politics, and other professional spheres. But the country has become notorious for astonishing levels of violence against women and children, and the poverty that afflicts a huge proportion of the population most heavily disadvantages women.
Sheila Sisulu is a widely admired educationist and veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle, the daughter-in-law of one of the ANC's most illustrious leaders, Walter Sisulu, and an articulate passionate advocate for women. How does she measure the achievements of the years since the first ANC government was elected in 1994?
Sisulu spoke to Charles Cobb, allAfrica.com's diplomatic correspondent, and Akwe Amosu, executive editor of AllAfrica Global Media.
In a recent speech to parliament, President Mbeki characterized post-apartheid South Africa as "making slow progress" on women's rights. How do you see the gains or losses women have made? What can be celebrated and what needs more effort?
I think that what can be celebrated, and is celebrated often in South Africa, is the position taken by women during the struggle, that our freedom is indivisible - that womens' rights are human rights and therefore we could not have the struggle in two stages - a struggle for everybody's freedom and then struggle for women's freedom separately. This has paid dividends in the sense that simultaneously, as South Africa became free in 1993-94, the issue of gender equity was integral to the freedom that was attained by everyone. Gender discrimination was outlawed in the constitution, and institutions were strategically placed to be like watchdogs both in and outside government, to ensure that womens' rights are not only promulgated, but also protected.
That translates into representation in terms of women's presence in government. In parliament, the speaker, the deputy speaker being women, and at provincial level and local level we're talking about a third or more women in all those structures. In the diplomatic corps as well, there are lots of women who are heading missions; in the G8 countries four out of the eight ambassadors are women and key strategic partners such as India -- the High Commissioner there is a woman. So, on that score I think there is a lot to celebrate.
But women's gains haven't translated into the business arena. When it comes to the chief executives in large corporations in South Africa you can count the women on the fingers of one hand and not even use all of those.There are members on boards [of directors] of some of those [private corporations] but they don't compare to the numbers of women who are on the boards of parastatals. So government again, even in that arena of work, is doing much better.
Of course there's a "bad" coming up! What does this really mean for the lives of ordinary women? Poverty still wears a feminine face in South Africa. It's women who have to deal with poverty in the sense the absence of facilities, good health care, lack of jobs, all that. In civil society, crimes against women are not abating in the same way that general violent crime are having a downward trend.
We have the legislators. We have the institutions. We have all the right mechanisms. The numbers are not exactly equal at this stage but I think for seven years of democracy we made a big leap and I think those numbers are growing and I have no doubt they will be equal in a short space of time. But what will that mean? Will we get to actually change attitudes of society through numbers? Given our history it doesn't seem going down that route is going to make a difference. It seems we have to do something more.
How important is it to make a distinction between urban and rural? And secondly, because we're talking about South Africa, how important are racial disctinctions?
You know, the second question is actually easier. I think white women and black middle class women are making inroads into positions of influence - I think on an equal basis;I don't think there's a problem there - to the point where some white males feel frightened by the fact that they are being 'bumped aside' in favor of white women. So I think the "broad sisterhood" is doing fairly well.
The first question about rural and urban divides more into poor and middle class in a way. It is rural-urban but it's also poor and middle class because, I think, the same kinds of problems that rural women have are experienced by women in urban areas who are poor. So poverty for me is the "unifier" in terms of women who continue to be disadvantaged. Obviously, it is exacerbated for women who are in the rural area, who do not have access to amenities and good health care facilities and other obvious social needs that are not being addressed. Underlying that is the question of poverty which is why in any plans for poverty alleviation the issue of rural development is key and within that issue, the issue of the development of women is also key.
What about black males being frightened of being "bumped aside" by black or white women?
I haven't felt that as sharply as I have felt it expressed in the case of white men -- some white men. I haven't felt the expression of that anxiety from black men. It might be there but I haven't picked it up as sharply as white males feeling like they are an endangered species.
If women are always being told that the first problem to be solved is the wider economic problem of poverty, does that strenthen or demobilise the womens' movement?
Oh no! I think I started off by saying that at least in the liberation movement, women refused to separate the two struggles. It paid off to say that we would fight the struggle side-by-side with our men. Our freedoms are not separate. And because women were at the table as equal partners in the struggle I think we were able to bring the issue of women very forcefully to the table. We have the kind of legislation that we have. We have the constitution that we have. We have the institutions that we have to insure these rights. But something else has to happen; and that something else, for me, is: As women at the table, how do we continue to ensure that issues of women are not only on the agenda, but that we insist on change that goes beyond just being at the table?
That's exactly why I'm asking the question - I can imagine sitting at the table and hearing: "The women are poor, the children are poor because the society is poor - we've got to fix the general problem first!" How do the women at the table keep focused on women's issues while grappling with broader issues that aren't necessarily gender-specific?
My own take on this is that when women go onto those platforms -- whether it's boardrooms, whether it's government - wherever - we have to continue to be agents of change for society as a whole. What are we bringing that the men who have been sitting around those tables aren't bringing? We have to identify that and stick with it. That is our agenda...to change society so that certain values that make our society a caring society are articulated, agitated for and won around those tables. Otherwise, we are just joining the establishment.
I think the challenge is for women's organizations, first of all, to keep those issues in our view all of the time, and articulate them very, very clearly. And two, hold women who are in those positions accountable - but also support them - and maybe even pick women deliberately on the basis that they are going to be agents of change.
I think in focusing on the numbers and the institutionalization of women's participation we've lost sight of the unique contribution that women should be making around those tables. I mean by that, we have tended to look at qualities that are not too different from the qualities of men who sit around that table.
Do you have an example?
You have to be articulate, be able to put your point across firmly. Women get trained to prepare (for meetings), you have to read your minutes. You get into the culture, the boardroom culture that prevails, of consensus and back-patting and just being absorbed. It's always about managing within the system. There aren't parts of that training that talk about rocking the boat.
I guess in order to change a system you've got to be able to understand it and be able to work with it, to your advantage. One doesn't want to pull down women who are already in those positions at the table, but we haven't supported them enough on strategies to be change agents - [we don't want to] rock the boat so that we tilt it over and everybody sinks with it, but we need to rock it enough to make the waves and get changes. There's been an assumption that just because you're [now] there, that's the change. We've underestimated the power of institutions to absorb, to assimilate.
Does this mean there is some pressure of time to get these changes made, before the woman at the table becomes just another "guy" at the table?
Absolutely. We have to do this quickly. We have to do this alongside increasing the numbers [of women in key positions]. We have, in getting those numbers, to get the right people. I'd rather have fewer people who can really make waves than many people who are going to be assimilated. I'm not saying numbers are not important but we've made the numbers the end of the story.
Well then I wonder whether having Winnie Madikizela Mandela as the leader of the ANC Women's League has helped or hindered the advancement of the women's cause? She is, after all, a very feisty, very tough, very 'out there' leader but, on the other hand, she is, apparently, inclined to rock the boat so much it could turn over; are people perhaps wary of supporting her leadership?
You know I think every situation requires a particular action. I think Winnie, throughout her career, has been at a point where her style of leadership was essential. But I think we've now gotten into an era where we're no longer breaking down the door. I mean, the door's open, we're inside. And I think we need a different kind of boat-rocker. We're at the table now - what (new) skills and strategies do we need to apply? They are very different from those needed to break down the door. She enhanced the women's movement at a time when it needed to break down the door. We're inside now and our tactics need to be appropriate to the task
But many, many women, especially poor women and women who feel that the focus so far has not so far been on them, would say that she's exactly the person needed to keep on making the waves because if they don't have a woman like that up there, they're not going to see any action on their needs.
I really can't speak for grassroots women and their perception of a leader such as Winnie but I don't think it's an "either/or" question. The responsibility rests firmly on Winnie too. She's also inside, she's not out there with the women who may feel excluded, she's inside, so how do we utilise her feistiness to change things around the table? To me, that's the challenge. Its not to exclude people like her, I think we all add value.
Part of [what we have to do is] to find allies - men! We need to move away from the antagonistic approach - it is not about that. It's about being against injustice and inequality in society and promoting values that would apply either way and benefit women specifically.
Take a simple thing like respect for others. The issue of crimes against women has to do with the lack of respect for others and women in particular. You can't say you respect others when there are these statistics [of rape and violence against women]. You can't say you are a society that respects human rights when the rights of women are violated in this most vicious way - what are we doing about that?
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But we're talking about the post-apartheid era in which you have successfully conducted elections and made a transition from white rule to popular goverment and you're slowly achieving economic development; so why should there be a decline in respect - and an increase in disrespect - for women, and what's the origin of that problem?
It's a very difficult question and I can only give a personal view on this which is most likely unscientific.
We have changed the landscape in terms of the numbers (of women in significant positions), the constitution etc. but people's attitudes and socialisation does not change in seven years. It's not a new thing, this disrespect of other people who are different, and of women in particular, and it's not going to be changed by legislation. it's becoming more stark because there is legislation that's supposed to work against it.
It's ironic that, at the very moment when you have mechanisms that are supposed to engender and enhance the new values, it actually brings the problems into more stark relief because the apartheid system supported this disrespect. Now the system doesn't support it but the attitudes that grew under those conditions remain.
Maybe I'll give an example that's close to my heart and that I understand better, in education; apartheid education was a systematic, deliberate effort to stunt the growth and development of black people. It was calculated. It was part of a bigger plan. We changed that by legislation; we outlawed whatever apartheid education intended.
But the damage continues to manifest itself in the products of that system that are still coming through, beyond 1994. In order to change that, we have to have a similarly rigourous system in place for those who are now coming up, that must reflect the values of the new South Africa. And there is a certain discomfort in some quarters [about that], that we've been through a socially engineered education system so we can't be seen to be doing the same in reverse... There's a shyness to 're-educate' people.
We talked about poverty and how that is a key obstacle to progress for women; but foreign investment coming into South Africa is reported to have fallen by half in the past year. So how vital is investment to solving the problems of women?
It is absolutely vital. We're seeing the impact of globalisation and it's a really big problem and it is playing into the whole problem of afro-pessimism as well. We badly need to attract investment if we're going to move forward.
Information about the gender divide from South Africa's Central Statistics Service in 1998: Women and Men in South Africa
Report prepared for the Office of the Executive Deputy President and the Inter-Ministerial Committee for Poverty and Inequality: Poverty and Inequality in South Africa
Articles and Resources from the IPPF: Violence Against Women: The Problems Facing South Africa
