women in south africa

During apartheid in South Africa, the country was a collaboration of racism and sexism with the government striving day in and day out to keep the country in such a state. The gender discrimination in South Africa is deeply rooted in the ethnic traditions of the multi-cultural communities, as well as by the compliance of women themselves. Several culture’s values perceive women as inferior to men. Because of these cultural traditions, compliance, and the government, gender equality in South Africa has been an ongoing battle, and will continue to be throughout the twenty-first century. In Western terms, Africa has always been impoverished and thriving with conflict whether it be between tribes, between husband and wife, or between citizens and the government. However, most of the conflict involves the discrimination and oppression of women. My objective is about African women living in reserves and urban areas struggles in housing, employment, and education during the apartheid.

African women in the reserves (homelands) were affected by the denial of rights to land and lack of local job opportunities. No African can live in a majority white population or in any homeland where he is not a citizen. In many cases even if the African was a citizen in the homeland he did not own land. He was likely a tentant to a white owner . The government’s policy emphasizes the continance of communal ownership of land as one aspect of traditional culture. Under that policy Africans were granted only the right to use the land not own and the community had the right to terminate their usage of the land depending on personal or communal needs. Since their was not enough land in any reserve to support its normal population, land allotment became a trou...

... middle of paper ...

...al scale, even the payments ("gratuities") made to prisoners for various kinds of work done under prison regulations discrimi nate not only among the races but also between men and women, with female African prisoners receiving the minimum. There is discrimination against African women in non-wage conditions of work as well. One egregious example is the provision by which the employment of an African woman in the public service and at the black university colleges is, by law, terminated on her marriage, a condition which, of course, does not apply to male employees. Only the desperate situation of rural Africans can explain the struggle of African women to remain in the cities, although most of them must accept the least desirable jobs at the lowest rates of pay - far below the poverty datum line. It is the white employer, in his business and his home, who profits.