REVIEW

Through women’s eyes

A review of Women Speak : Reflections on our struggles 1982 - 1997 by Jenny Grice, NUMSA Publications Officer.

The 1980s were dangerous times for activists, whether they were in trade unions, political organisations or community organisations. They faced detention, harassment and sometimes even death.

Through these dark times, however, the light shone in many places.

One such light spot was the proliferation of magazines, journals and booklets that were sold to workers at union rallies and workshops. This reading material was open in challenging the apartheid regime. It spoke of alternatives to the capitalist system and it put the spotlight on ordinary people?s, especially workers? lives.

Speak

The thread uniting these publications was the evil of apartheid and the importance of getting rid of it. Into this thread entered SPEAK, a magazine set up by a group of women from across the class and racial divide.

SPEAK was also strong in opposing the apartheid regime, but it added a different dimension to the other reading material - it gave a view of the struggle against apartheid through women?s eyes. It also dared to say that women were not just oppressed by apartheid, but also by their own homes, sometimes by the very men who were the anti-apartheid leaders!

Ironically, as the political situation changed and the apartheid regime?s pillars slowly crumbled, so too did the barrage of anti-apartheid and ?alternative? reading material. Faced with a reduction in funding and a shortage of skilled personnel, SPEAK closed its magazine in 1994.

Five years later, members of the initial SPEAK collective have put together a compilation of some of the stories from the ten years that SPEAK was published.

It is a refreshing reminder of what conditions were like in the 1980s; what women achieved in those times and how they organised and won various struggles.

Structure

The book is divided into six chapters:

• Women in communities
• Women workers
• Fighting violence against women
• The personal is political
• Women in political resistance
• Women in negotiations, government and civil society.

Each chapter has a short introduction that gives background to the chapter?s focus. It then reproduces a number of short articles taken from different issues of SPEAK over the years. Chapters are rounded off with an updated comment on how far the issue is today and a poem.

The different focus of each chapter adds to the depth of the book. We read of:

• the Hambanati women?s struggle with the Council to get the rubbish dump removed further away from the township;
• the difficulties women face from family if they try to attend union meetings; of women who are beaten by their husbands who are also comrades;
• the woman who walks out on her boyfriend after having sex because she feels he ?is only interested in himself?, he doesn?t care about her sexual needs;
• the debate in 1991 over a women?s quota for the ANC NEC;
• the pressures put on women in detention;
• strong words of encouragement from a mother whose activist daughter was killed by police;
• the challenges for women MPs after 1994.

Memories

The book is not just a celebration of women?s achievements. I found it refreshing, inspiring and challenging. It also rekindled memories for me of those ?dark times? of the 1980s, when, despite incredible hardship, women came out fighting.

Used as an educational tool in workshops, extracts from this book will do much to open debate and discussion on numerous sensitive issues like rape, abortion, lobola.

I also have no doubt that it will, in the SPEAK collective?s words: ?remind us of the struggles we have come from in order to go forward with greater strength.?

My only regret is that this is just a book and not a regular monthly magazine. What else can women workers in South Africa read to get inspiration? Would the magazines that are now available every carry a poem such as this?

Madam

Madam remember when I was young

and happy

Remember when I used to perform

your choruses in time

Remember when I used to run your errands fast

Today I?m old I?m no good

Madam where did my sweat go

Madam did you ever consider that today I

need you as you needed me

in the sixteen years

I worked for you

by Rosaline Naapo