“We are all products of history, but each of us can choose whether or not to become its victims” : an exploration of the discourses employed in the Women’s National Coalition

As South Africa transitioned into democracy and began negotia- ting the terms of the new dispensation, the near exclusion of women from the early stages of the negotiations propelled a movement of women across the country, organising to ensure that their needs and aspirations were represented in the defining of the new political order. At the heart of this movement was the Women’s National Coalition (WNC), formed in 1991 to identify and advocate for women’s primary needs in the post-apartheid Constitution. This created unprecedented opportunities for wo- men from all parts of the country to identify and to organise around commonalities, and it also exposed some of the deep divisions and power inequalities that separated groups of women from each other. In seeking to understand these dynamics, I ex- plore dominant discourses that were employed within the WNC

Publisher: University of Cape Town
Year of Publication: 2012
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