CHAPTER ONE

• Background to the Study

The need for a socio-cultural re-definition is the essence of the post- apartheid struggle. In the case of the black South African woman, the privileging of voice becomes an opening for women whose voices have been unheard, marginalised and silenced. They were not able to speak of their failure as mothers to protect their own children against police harassment and the ravages of poverty. It was women as single parents and grandmothers who effectively headed households when fathers were unwilling or unable to take up the responsibility. Indeed, this was the spirit that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hoped to impart to the nation; an obseravtion that resonates well with Fiona Ross when he argues that “the world is knowable only through words and that to have no voice is to be language-less, unable to communicate” (22). Writing in the new democracy has its unique qualites and new challenges.

The historical changes in the new political dispensation make it necessary for women to redefine and renegotiate their relationship with the state, their men-folk and with one another. In particular, a new socio-economic divide has arisen out of the states‟ inability to provide basic rights such as clean water, sanitation, health- care, free education and affordable and safe housing for all. Many, many blacks remain unable to access a better lifestyle and are forced to endure the consequences of the cycle of poverty. Some have argued that apartheid has evolved from “race” to “class” (22). Women who cannot speak out are seen as disempowered, unable to act and to effect change. Silence can be associated with powerlessness.

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