o_1915f04bi181p2m9qs12em17oea.pdf

nism
Culture & Society
the World
party systems, military dictatorships
dissolved into civilian rule, freedom
of press, association and assembly
Africa, especially after 2000, further sped
up the push for women’s rights, especially
With time, women’s organisations
became increasingly independent of
government and the dominant political
party. Women activists began to acquire
their own resources, select their own
leaders and forge their own agendas.
They started taking on some of the
most challenging issues that affected
women. These included issues relating
to domestic violence, inheritance rights,
female genital cutting, child marriage and
other issues relating to customary law.
More recently, there has been increased
support for cervical screening and more
awareness around abortion and other
contentious issues.
Although the older welfare-oriented
and developmental agendas persist to
this day, a new emphasis on political
participation and advocacy has emerged.
New women’s organisations formed to
improve leadership skills, encourage
women’s political involvement, promote
women’s political leadership, press for
legislative changes, and conduct civic
education.
On the one hand, some of the successes
of African women’s movements can
be attributed to the roles played by
international organizations in catalyzing
change, providing broad spaces for
debate and action, and offering examples
for African nations and campaigners to
emulate.
But on the other hand, African
organisations can be seen to have
taken unique and novel approaches to
campaigning for female empowerment in
world.
In Africa, the term “feminism” has
often carried with it the baggages of
being regarded as a Western and foreign
construct. However, this is rapidly
changing as feminism itself has been
in Africa to suit their own purposes.
While some of these women’s
rights agendas have been inspired
by international feminism, African
women are themselves contributing
and implementation of women’s rights as
we see in the struggles over quotas and
constitutional reform.
The notion of ‘gender mainstreaming’
that became popular in the 1980s
had been articulated by women like
Jacqueline Ki-Zerbo from Burkina Faso in
1960, when at a UN meeting she argued
for the need to, “keep a double stream, to
the same time trying to involve them in
the mainstream of decisions and actions”.
More recently, women’s increasingly
visible presence in African legislatures
has also resulted in new global discussions
about strategies to enhance women’s
political representation.
The incremental model of increasing
women’s representation in parliament
that led to high rates of female
representation in the Nordic countries
in the 1970s has now been replaced by
The Parade - Zimbabwe’s Most Read Lifestyle Magazine August 2014
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