Narrating Gender and Sex in and through Apartheid Divides

Abstract

In this article I reflect on the way in which racist practices intersect with gender as this emerges in narratives on living through apartheid, from a group of academics in contemporary South Africa. A wide range of literature has explored the complex intersections of 'race', gender, class and other forms of difference and power inequality through the history of South Africa before, during and after apartheid. The continued intersection of gender with racist practices and other forms of inequality is more than evident in post-apartheid South Africa and reflected in multiple contexts. While a number of stories of women and their experiences of the violent forms of the intersection of gendered apartheid through rape and abuse have been documented by the TRC and other forms of interrogation, the more 'normal' stories of how racist and gendered practices played themselves out in patriarchal apartheid South Africa are arguably not widely documented other than in theoretical terms. A narrative analysis located within a broad discourse analytic framework is utilised here, which foregrounds experiences in the narratives that reflect broader ideologies on 'race', class, culture, gender and sexuality and their enmeshment with each other that were salient in apartheid South Africa and arguably are still of relevance today. I explore some of the multiple and complex ways, many of them not new to us, in which normative gender roles and gender power relations, and sexual and intimate practices intersect with racialised discourse and racist practices in home, work and public spaces through the stories that participants tell.

Skin Bleaching in South Africa: A Result of Colonialism and Apartheid?

“…In 1948, the institution of apartheid further emphasized white supremacy by reinforcing segregation (Colonialism and segregation ; Clark & Worger, 2011;Shefer, 2010). During apartheid, the oppressors controlled black South Africans by making new laws that established racial separation and suppressed blacks' political involvement.…”

“…The residual effects of colonialism and apartheid play a primordial role in South African women's self-hatred and low self-esteem (Charles, 2003;2009;Lee, 2009). During colonialism and apartheid, South African women were treated as inferior, not only because they were dark-skinned but also because they were considered the weaker sex ( Shefer, 2010). They were, therefore, domesticated and treated by their oppressors and spouses as less than equal to men (Lee, 2009).…”

Fraught tenderness: Narratives on domestic workers in memories of apartheid.

“…Yet the complex intersection of race, class, and gender meant that the reproduction of a racialized patriarchy was also in process. Indeed recent work on retrospective narratives of apartheid foreground how the doing of gender was profoundly raced and race gendered and also bound in complex ways with sexualities (e.g., Shefer, 2010; Shefer & Ratele, 2011).…”

The absence of gender in Canadian foreign policy: Candian policies toward South Africa

“…During the racist, patriarchal, segregationist Apartheid regime, from 1948 to 1994, gender hierarchies entrenched (mostly white) male power and further disempowered (mostly black) women (Britton 2006). In addition, black men were not seen or treated as men by their white counterparts and were routinely infantilized, emasculated and made to feel less than human (Schefer 2010).…”

“…To be "masculine" means to have membership to a particular community, and when the system is threatened, gender identities are threatened with a loss of meaning (Praeg and Baillie 2011). During Apartheid, black men were de-masculinized in a variety of ways, sometimes as simply as being referred to as "boy" and not being able to do anything about it (Schefer 2010). This process of racist de-masculinization invariably led to a loss of identity (of masculine, black men).…”