The Futility of Chasing Shadows of Patriarchal Liberation: the African National Congress Women’s League (ANCWL) and Anti-Colonial Feminist Politics

Abstract

In this paper, I combine critical feminist theories and postcolonial/decolonial feminist theories to examine the persistence of patriarchy in South Africa’s postcolonial moment. The postcolonial is taken as both the time that comes after settler rule is over and the recognition that colonialism continues in another form even after settler rule is over (Hall, Post-colonial 244). I ask how is it that at a postcolonial time, when South Africans seem to have made strides on the liberation of women, especially black women, political parties are still reluctant to elect females to lead. Through a close reading of the election of five men and only one woman to lead the ruling African National Congress (ANC) for the next five years – as a news event – I argue that the reasons include an ineffectual liberal feminist praxis adopted by the leaders of the African National Congress Women’s League (ANCWL) as some kind of ‘depoliticised politics’ (Jorgensen and Phillips, Wodak and Meyer, Fairclough). This lack of ideological clarity is characterised by reluctance to tackle patriarchy head on by the women leaders.