"To work hard and walk fearless": the specificity of women's resistance in South African history

Abstract

Why should we celebrate National Women's Day each year? What was so special about the events of August 9 1956, and can we draw from those events any arguments about the nature of women's resistance to apartheid? In this paper, I will draw on the oral testimony of women in the Eastern Cape in order to put forward an argument that there is a specificity to women's resistance which differentiates it from other forms of organization -a specificity which has everything to do with the fact that it is women who were doing the organizing. In other words, a 'gendered analysis' of women's resistance in the past will be put forward, which may also offer some tentative insight into challenges facing women's organization in South Africa today.