Women's Organisations and Democracy in South Africa

The transition to democracy in South Africa was one of the defining events in twentieth-century political history. The South African women's movement is one of the most celebrated on the African continent. bn Shireen Hassim examines interactions between the two as she explores the gendered nature of liberation and regime change. Her work reveals how women's political organisations both shaped and were shaped by the broader democratic movement.

Alternatively asserting their political independence and giving precedence to the democratic movement as a whole, women activists proved flexible and remarkably successful in influencing policy. At the same time their feminism was profoundly shaped by the context of democratic and nationalist ideologies.