Women, ‘tradition’ and reconstruction

Abstract

This article discusses the tension between the ANC's commitment to gender equality and its engagement within the new government with what I term ‘the politics of traditionalism’. These politics have been most evident in the deadly struggle to out‐manoeuvre the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), while convincing it to participate in the elections, a struggle in which the Zulu king has been the pre‐eminent (but not the only) representative of the resurgent traditionalism that the ANC has been attempting to defuse and co‐opt. The ‘tradition’ being negotiated is fundamentally patriarchal, and the two goals — gender equality and accommodating ‘tradition’ — are, I argue, ultimately incompatible. Further, given the limitations on the way in which gender equality is perceived within the ANC, as well as the absence of a politically powerful mass women's movement on the ground, it is likely that, in seeking to manage this incompatibility, the ANC‐led government will compromise or delay its commitment to gender equality.