Postcolonial Feminism In South Africa In Relation To The Case Of Bhe V Magistrate KhayelitshaEssay Preview: Postcolonial Feminism In South Africa In Relation To The Case Of Bhe V Magistrate KhayelitshaReport this essayThis essay will look at the case of Bhe v Magistrate Khayelitsha , and analyse the decision in light of postcolonial feminism. It will examine whether the concept of equality can be reconciled with customary practices in South Africa, or whether these practices are outdated and have no place in a modern democratic society like South Africa, where equality and human dignity are fundamental concepts our society is built on. The assumption that the law in some way reflects unequal power relations between men and women is central to most feminist jurisprudence . All feminist thinking has a political aspect that engages ideas as to how things “ought to be” in an ideal world . It is therefore necessary to describe what exactly postcolonial feminism advocates, and how this can be applied to the Bhe case.
Postcolonial feminism is based on postmodern feminism, in the sense that it is also concerned with the construction of gender identity . Postmodern thought rejects the idea of a foundational truth, it states that any claim to truth or meaning is nether certain nor pre-existing . Identity is seen as a complex combination of different elements such as class, race, gender and sexuality .Thus postmodern feminism argues that the idea of woman is neither stable, nor fixed; they reject any conception of woman as a universal or homogenous category . The idea of “woman” cannot be described solely in relation to men or in terms of common experience, gender difference is not seen as a fundamental division in society but is dependent upon context and complex, ever-changing social practices . Postmodern feminists reject the very notion of difference of difference as inherently oppressive, due to the multi-faceted construction of the self . The ever-shifting nature of identity means that gender is merely one component of oppression, as is class, religion, culture, race, and various other social factors.
The difference between postcolonial and postmodern feminism centres around the postmodern idea of the rejection of categories such as race, gender, and class as forms of domination and subordination . Postcolonial writing instead focuses on understanding the above mentioned categories as specific process of supremacy and domination. Thus an understanding of the law will investigate how the law constructs and reinforces particular ideas of gender identity and how these ideas are linked to wider systems of political, economic and social domination in controlling and regulating women . Therefore in order to analyse the Bhe case one must examine if and how the customary law of succession subdues and controls women that live under such a seemingly patriarchal system.
The application in Bhe was made on behalf of the two minor daughters of Ms Nontupheko Bhe and her deceased partner, who were married under customary law. It was contended that the customary law rule of male primogeniture unfairly discriminated against the two children by preventing them from inheriting from the estate of their deceased father . In traditional families the eldest son or failing him, the eldest male descendent of the eldest son inherits from the family head . If the family head dies without producing a son, other male family members of the deceased will inherit. Wives and daughters of the deceased generally do not inherit . In this situation the heir to the deceaseds property had indicated that he wished to sell the deceaseds property in order to pay for funeral expenses.
The decision in Bhe abolished the customary law of succession codified in the Black Administration Act and its regulations, and replaced it with the common law of succession . What the court effectively did was directly declare the male primogeniture rule unconstitutional by declaring certain sections of the Black Administration Act and its regulations unconstitutional . It held that the applicable provisions of the Black Administration Act were discriminatory and contrary to S9(3) of the Constitution , and not “reasonable and justifiable in a democratic society based on dignity, quality and freedom.” The court found that there was adequate evidence before it to demonstrate that African women and descendents who were not first born males were “placed in an extremely vulnerable situation ” and their rights to dignity and equality were violated by the continued application of the rule of male primogeniture.
However, there has been dissonance around this decision. The Bill of Rights guarantees everyone the right to participate in the cultural life of their choice, provided that these rights are not exercised in a manner inconsistent with any provision of the Constitution . It therefore seems as if the Constitution enables competing rights such as equality and dignity to prevail over cultural rights . However, the whole purpose of the new constitutional dispensation is to move South African society from the old social and legal orders in which the social institutions and legal systems of some communities were simply disregarded by the common law . Thus the customary law of succession cannot just simply be disregarded without careful examination.
One must firstly enquire whether the entire concept of primogeniture is not entirely against the concept of feminism. Feminism argues that the law constructs and reinforces particular ideas of gender identity . By only allowing male heirs to inherit property, the law as it stood was creating a conception of poor, black women married under customary law as weak and relatively unimportant, seemingly unable to handle ownership of property and make important decisions affecting the household. Therefore on such an initial construction it seems that the rule of primogeniture was creating unequal power relations and constructing women as inferior and unimportant in relation to men.
However, Oyewumi argues that feminism, even such purported by African scholars, is Western in origin and often not appropriate when studying African discourse . She argues that theorists impose Western categories on non-Western cultures and then “project such categories as normal” . She claims that the different ways the social world is constructed in other cultures through the eyes of “Westernised” academics nullify the alternatives purported by non-Western cultures and in fact undermine the claim that gender is a social construction . African intellectuals have accepted and identified with Western thinking to the point that they have merely created African versions of European things . Thus feminism, despite its fundamental local stance, in fact exhibits the same ethnocentric and imperialistic characteristics of the Western discourses it sought to subvert . It may therefore have limitations on its applicability outside of the culture that produced
Practicalities of Feminist Theory and Studies in Africa.
Practicalities
Feminism: The Political Economy Approach
This approach will explore the empirical, and historical, basis of Feminist Theory. At the same time these methods will address the practicality, historical, and political applications of Feminist theory as it develops into a practical (and therefore practical) approach to theoretical research through the methods outlined in Feminist Theory.
SOCIAL AFFAIRS
Feminists often define political, social and cultural issues through a variety of lens. Some focus on issues such as “political correctness”, and their impact in relation to the lives of some black people, while others focus on issues of race and gender, class, social class, race relations, power structures, social class, gender and power structures.
To understand the historical context. One way that feminist theory can address this is by examining the context of slavery, through the role of the social class. This means the question – ‘how do you define the role of a poor black man in the civil rights movement versus whether a white man should own an apartment?’ – must be considered. This is an increasingly important question on the part of feminist theory but often ignored, because of its historical inaccuracies, in order to explore historical issues and solutions to these issues.
To put this in perspective, the concept of slavery is widely used as the dominant view of African societies, by contemporary scholars such as David Johnson as a justification for their unequal and backward status. For example Johnson points out that when African society has developed its values towards racial equality and liberation, white people in Africa have been deprived of their own rights. This is the main reason why some have held that African slaves had been bought and sold to whites, even as they were subject to involuntary servitude.
Other historians of African social history would go further by noting that, in the early nineteenth century white and black children in South Africa were forced to live side-by-side with black children by law, so that racial groups could survive. The idea of enslavement was considered as a symbol of poverty and slavery, even though this is the idea which, as has been discussed, was the main reason why Africans were so forced into servitude, and that slavery was often seen as racist. The political issues confronting African communities in the early twentieth century were primarily personal, and not political or intellectual issues.
Other scholars of African society would also use the term social oppression to describe racism and have tried to put African thinkers and philosophers on their own turf to study African history. The practice of racial discrimination in black culture, particularly in the South, is often described through the phrase, ‘bend down, fall down’ in the book African American Studies : ‘racial segregation’ and in other terms the idea of institutionalised and systemic oppression and ‘whites v. blacks’ (Hodge & Lewis, 1970). Many also used the term white privilege, or white racism in general, to describe interminably systemic oppression. Both were part of the institutionalized power structure as African leaders and political representatives of their own ethnic groups were forced to make and distribute decisions, policies, decisions in order to exploit people and gain an advantage with black populations over non-African communities (Eisenhower, 1973).
In response to the general issues that African scholars might want to address, feminism would advocate a number of methods of understanding why some people of the same race came to be more politically diverse and more socially marginalized than others. The first method would be to understand how different groups of people (especially women) would tend to have different political styles and political agendas. Second, it would be useful to explore how different groups of people could understand each other and have mutually accepted commonalities in politics. And finally, it would be useful to make efforts to learn from the other-race culture and how it was understood.
This book will be a first aid