In dealing with colonialism, imperialism and racism, South African women of course faced unique hardships and oppressions. Black women in Apartheid South Africa faced severely limited job opportunities and high infant mortality rates due to lack of pre-natal health care. Women’s bodies and lives were controlled by the government’s Apartheid laws.
Winnie Mandela was just one of many women who played courageous roles in the struggle against Apartheid.
Among her peers were such women as Thenjiwe Mtintso, a journalist and freedom fighter who was banned and exiled several times from the 1960s into the 1980s. Mtintso served as a commander in the armed struggle organization of the African National Congress and on the Central Committee of the South African Communist Party.
Lillian Ngoyi, a founder of the Federation of South African Women, was a beloved anti-apartheid figure.
There were women leaders outside the ANC as well. Sikose Mji was a leader of the Black Consciousness Movement, founded by Steve Biko and others in the late 1960s, and participated in the heroic Soweto Uprising.
Women played a major role in the trade union movement. Early in the struggle, women leaders started trying to unionize non-white women in the laundry, clothing, mattress, furniture and baking industries. They fought to bring an end to job reservations by race and to have universal education.
In 1954, the Federation of South African Women was formed in opposition to the National Party’s Apartheid regime. The FSAW represented 230,000 women. They organized government school boycotts and led a very militant transit boycott in the towns of Alexandria, Sophiatown and Lady Shelburne.
Within three weeks of a one-cent increase in fares, the women organized over 25,000 people to boycott the Public Utility Transportation Company along with the support of 20,000 other Africans not directly affected by the company. They were met with violence by the state, and police raided the town of Lady Shelburne, arresting 6,606 Africans. The people triumphed nonetheless, and the transit company was forced to roll back their prices.
Women in South Africa understood their oppression as unique from men, but recognized they had a common fight because they had a common enemy, Apartheid, and a common destiny — revolution.
Many of the unnamed women activists of the era will never be mentioned in the history books, but they remain in the hearts of the people. The women of South Africa come from a tradition of persistence and strength, and remain on the frontlines of struggle today.
