Philosophiae Doctor - PhD (Women and Gender Studies)

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Protesting death-disability-debility imaginaries: Ontological erasure and the endemic violences of settler colonialism
(University of the Western Cape, 2023) Mohamed, Kharnita; Shefer, Tamara
White supremacist rule socially engineered impoverishment dispossession and fomented brutality that black people in South Africa were made to endure through centuries at the settler colonial history , which was intensified during apartheid and continued in the nearly three decades of the postapartheid era
Rebellious Black femininities: Embodiments of freedom, desire and agency in South African popular culture from 1980 to present
(University of the Western Cape, 2022) Mazibuko, Mbali; Shefer, Tamara
In this thesis, I explore the notion of rebellious Black femininities and how they are articulated through and within popular culture in South Africa. I focus on the biographies of some women who have occupied the South African public imaginary over the last few decades, including the late apartheid and post-apartheid eras. The focus is specifically on Brenda Fassie as she emerges in the entertainment industry in 1980s apartheid South Africa, Boom Shaka and Lebo Mathosa during the transition to democracy and in the early democratic state, contemporary women like Khanyi Mbau, and the figure of the Slay Queen. I show how rebellious women are not simply oppositional to socially constructed notions of �good� or �traditional� femininities. Rather, through the biographies of the aforementioned Black women, I demonstrate that femininities that complicate binarisms are rebellious because they destabilise hegemonic gendered and intersecting social constructions.
An encounter with the structural and spiritual violence of coloniality: Intersectional understanding of black students� experiences of exclusion in higher education
(University of the Western Cape, 2022) Albert, Geraldin Wanelisa; Shefer, Tamara
Since the fall of Apartheid, the new mandate of the democratic South African government has been to provide equal quality education for all and to desegregate the education system. However, the national government�s refusal to decolonise the country, the colonial stronghold of the university, structural racism, and systemic violences strategically remove Black students from the university space. This study examines the structural and spiritual violences experienced by Black South African students in higher education that resulted in their inability to graduate. First, this study gives a historical account of the origins of the identity �Black� in colonial discourse, then it traces how the historical construction of Black as inferior justified the exclusion of Black people in education while coloniality destroyed indigenous ways of knowing.
Socially just pedagogies: Towards participatory parity in higher education
(University of the Western Cape, 2022) Gredley, Susan; Shefer, Tamara
South Africa remains challenged by persistent poverty and inequality, the ramifications of which are felt across the higher education (HE) sector. Many students enter universities already hindered by socio-economic inequalities as well as discriminatory and oppressive cultural practices which continue to impact on their studies. Whilst considerable effort has been put into transforming HE from within and outside the academy, much still needs to be done to ensure that all students are able to flourish and fully participate as equals on university campuses and within teaching spaces.
Radical possibilities at the crossroads of African feminism and digital activism
(University of the Western Cape, 2022) Hussen, Tigist Shewarega; Lewis, Desiree
Studies abound that deal with digital activism and social movements worldwide. Many African scholars continue to dwell on how the effects of technological advancement and access to social media are ingrained in class and other structural inequalities. Certain scholars (Mutsvairo, 2016; Bosch, 2017; Wasserman, 2018; Okech, 2020) are also invested in unpacking the possibilities that social media platforms are offering to social movements, and the shift occurring in many African countries� social and political structures. A central political current here is the tension in the relationship between masculinist nationalist movements and feminist digital activisms in Africa.
Exploring the Journey to Maternal Death: Gender and Human Rights perspectives on the major causes of maternal mortality in the Western Cape Province, South Africa
(University of the Western Cape, 2003) Mbombo, Nomafrench; Jackson, D.
In this thesis, I use gender and human rights approaches to examine and analyse the major causes of maternal mortality, which result from delay in seeking maternity care and failure to attend maternity care during pregnancy. A gender approach was used to identify and analyse inequalities that arise from belonging to one sex or from unequal power relations between sexes and how these impact on women accessing maternity care. The Human Rights approach was used to identify and analyse health system related factors that led women to delay seeking care and also failing to attend maternity care. A qualitative multiple case study methodology was followed with data analysed thematically. Findings were interpreted in the context of the International Bill of Rights, the South African Bill of Rights and International Human Rights treatises. Maternity women are unable to access maternity care because of their unmet gender equity needs, and because of maternity services that are not respecting, protecting and fulfilling their human right to access health care. A Gender-Human rights model of accessibility to quality maternity care is developed to assist health care providers in promoting availability of maternity services to health consumers. The model propositions are based on the major concepts which are: Gender equity, Women empowerment, Human rights to quality health care, Evidence Based Health Care, and Support during labour.
Representations of gender, race and sexuality in selected English-medium South African magazines, 2003-2005
(University of the Western Cape, 2007) Sange, Nadia; Clowes, Lindsay
In this thesis, I explore representations of gender, race and sexuality in a select group of South African magazines - Men's Health, FHM, Blink, True Love, Femina and Fair Lady - between 2003 and 2005. From a feminist poststructuralist perspective, I argue that these magazines present particular subjectivities as normative; privileging and centering one pole within dichotomies of gender, race and sexuality. The exploration considers ideas of social responsibility in the discourses of magazine editors, and how these are linked to subjective representations of gender, race and sexuality. I focus on the magazines' presentations of racialised heteromasculinities, and its connections to presentations of women as particular kinds of sex objects. I explore the hyper(hetero)sexual presentation of black and white femininities in women's magazines, attempting to illustrate how these presentations translate into efforts to remain or become heterosexually desirable to an unnamed and unmarked, but clearly masculine audience.
Gender equality and happiness among South African women
(University of the Western Cape, 2018) Rustin, Carmine Jianni; Shefer, Tamara
Have South African women's lives become happier since the transition to democracy? If they are, could this be linked to gender equality? This is the central question of this study. This study explored a group of women�s subjective experiences of gender equality, by which I mean equality on the basis of gender; and happiness, which refers to women�s life satisfaction and their affective state. It further explores whether gender equality and happiness are linked. The study assumed that everything being equal, endeavours to liberate women from patriarchy and towards gender equality enhance women�s happiness. 1994 ushered in a democratic South Africa and numerous legislative and policy changes were introduced that affect women. Considerable gains have been made at the constitutional and political levels for women�s equality and gender justice. This is reflected in the rankings of South Africa on many different indices. Yet, we see numerous challenges facing women including poverty and gender-based violence. This study examined whether the presence of a range of policies as well as affirmative and protective measures for women have impacted on how they experience their lives. In particular, do they feel that they are happy and do they see happiness as linked to gender equality efforts? Given the research question, this study was grounded within a feminist framework. A mixed methods approach utilising both qualitative and quantitative methods was employed.
"Yes madam, I can speak!'': A study of the recovered voice of the domestic worker
(University of the Western Cape, 2018) Mcwatts, Susheela; Shefer, Tamara
Events in the last few years on the global stage have heralded a new era for domestic workers, which may afford them the voice as subaltern that has been silent until now. Despite being constructed as silent and as subjects without agency, unionised domestic workers organised themselves globally, becoming more visible and making their voices heard. This culminated in the promulgation of the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) Convention No.189 on Decent Work for Domestic Workers (or C189) in September 2013, and the establishment of the International Domestic Workers' Federation (IDWF) in October 2013. This broadening of the scope of domestic workers' activism has not yet received sufficient attention in academic research. These two historic events on their own have the potential to change the dominant discourse around domestic workers, by mobilising workers with agency to challenge the meaning of the political ideologies informing their identity positions of exploitation and subjugation.
Decentering nationalism: Representing and contesting Chimurenga in Zimbabwean popular culture
(University of the Western Cape, 2015) Mawere, Tinashe; Lewis, Desiree; Raftopoulos, Brian
This study seeks to uncover the non-coercive, intricate and insidious ways which have generated both the 'willing' acceptance of and resistance to the rule of Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF in Zimbabwe. I consider how popular culture is a site that produces complex and persuasive meanings and enactments of citizenship and belonging in contemporary Zimbabwe and focus on 'agency,' 'subversion' and their interconnectedness or blurring. The study argues that understanding nationalism's impact in Zimbabwe necessitates an analysis of the complex ways in which dominant articulations of nationalism are both imbibed and contested, with its contestation often demonstrating the tremendous power of covert forms of resistance. The focus on the politics of popular culture in Zimbabwe called for eclectic and critical engagements with different social constructionist traditions, including postcolonial feminism, aspects of the work of Louis Althusser and Michel Foucault. My eclectic borrowing is aimed at enlisting theory to analyse ways in which co-optation, subversion and compromise often coexist in the meanings generated by various popular and public culture forms. These include revered national figures and symbols, sacrosanct dead bodies and retrievals, slogans and campaign material, sport, public speeches, the mass media and music. The study therefore explores political sites and responses that existing disciplinary studies, especially politics and history, tend to side-line. A central thesis of the study is that Zimbabwe, in dominant articulations of the nation, is often constituted in a discourse of anti-colonial war, and its present and future are imagined as a defence of what has already been gained from previous wars in the form of "chimurenga." I argue that formal sites of political contestation often reinforce forms of patriarchal, heterosexist, ethnic, neo-imperial and class authoritarianism often associated only with the ZANU PF as the overtly autocratic ruling party. In turning to diverse forms of popular culture and their reception, I identify and analyze sites and texts that, rather than constituting mere entertainment or reflecting organized and party political struggles, testify to the complexity and intensity of current forms of domination and resistance in the country. Contrary to the view that Zimbabwe has been witnessing a steady paralysis of popular protest, the study argues that slogans, satire, jokes, metaphor, music and general performance arts by the ordinary people are spaces on which "even the highly spectacular deployment of gender and sexuality to naturalize a nationalism informed by the 'efficacy' of a phallocentric power 'cult' is full of contestations and ruptures."
Violence against lesbians and (IM) possibilities for identity and politics
(University of the Western Cape, 2015) Judge, Melanie; Shefer, Tamara; Ratele, Kopano
In 2006 South Africa extended marriage rights to gay and lesbian citizens, further signposting their legal inclusion in the post-apartheid order. This inclusion is marked by homophobic murder, signifying the continued social exclusion of those at the sexual margins. The spectre of murder is a political pressure point that has come to dominate local and global imaginaries of queer life in South Africa. This study of violence, sexuality and politics is located in the marriage-murder moment, which signals the paradox of being queer in contemporary South Africa. Against this backdrop, the study explores how lesbian subjectivities are constituted in the discourse of �violence against lesbians�; what this reveals and conceals about sexual, gender, race and class identities in post-apartheid South Africa; and what such discursive arrangements render (im)possible in relation to how homophobia-related violence might be politically resisted. Violence against lesbians is approached as a discursive surface for the production of meanings, identities and power, with a focus on its productive dimensions in constituting subjectivity and politics. The contending ways of knowing �lesbians� and the violence they encounter produce the imaginable actions against it. Grounded in feminist post-structuralism, and queer and post- colonial theories, a discourse analysis was undertaken of data from focus groups with lesbian-identified women, media texts, and �official� texts from activist organisations and public institutions. The findings show that homophobia-related violence is a contested discursive terrain wherein normative power relations of sexuality, gender, race and class are both reproduced and resisted. Largely staged around black women as victims and black men as perpetrators, violence is understood in highly sexualised, racialised, classed and gendered registers that draw on apartheid and colonial tropes. In particular, the discourse of sexuality articulates with a politics of race within homophobia-related violence as a knowledge regime. This is seen in the �blackwashing� of homophobia and its discursive mobilisations to make racial attributions � intersected with sexuality, class and gender � about the causes and characters of, and �cures� for, violence. Discursive investments in the spectacle of violence against lesbians, as a particularised form of black and queer suffering, deflect attention away from the social conditions in which violence � as an instrument of power � finds form. The spectacularisation of violence against black lesbians legitimises the �naturalness� of homophobia, disarticulating it from the multiple modes of violent othering with which it is imbricated. In exploring the discursive resources for political agency against violence, the study finds divergent forms of agentic possibility. Some subject positions seek to adapt or regulate gendered behaviour through the promotion of feminised self-care strategies that individualise and depoliticise violence. Others assume homonormalising discourses that bolster gender, race and class hegemonies and their associated queer ascendancies. At the same time, the normalisation of violence and the regulatory practices that seek to constrain lesbian subjectivities are contested. A politics of law and order provides a dominant frame through which violence and conceivable actions against it are constructed. Through a discourse of hate crime, the cause of violence is individualised, and the law and the state are positioned as central to its prevention and punishment. In contrast, activist discourses locate the causes of violence within prevailing power relations that continue to render queers racially and economically precarious. The findings point to how violence against lesbians operates as a marker of queer inclusion and exclusion. Violence against lesbians does the work of race, gender, sexuality and class hierarchisation within the dominant social order. It both settles and unsettles apartheid rationalities, and, in doing so, exposes the contingency and precarity of queer subjectivity in post-apartheid South Africa. The findings suggest that homophobia-related violence charts a story of differentiation, both amongst queers themselves and in their relationship to others. These differentiations have race, gender, sexual and class coordinates which, together and apart, assert particular views of what constitutes queer livability on the one hand, and queer violability on the other. Whilst some discursive frames for countering violence provide liberatory potential, others constitute new forms of regulation, scrutiny and disciplining of queer subjects. The study aims to contribute to the production of knowledge that might, in the face of violence, re-imagine power and advance the political aspirations of marginalised subjectivities.
Soccer stakeholders� perceptions and experiences of gender equity practices in soccer at four Western Cape universities in South Africa
(University of the Western Cape, 2014) Nkambule, Thabisile Carol; Shefer, Tamara
This study presents an exploration of a group of soccer stakeholders� perceptions and experiences of gender equity practices at four Western Cape universities in South Africa. It discusses female soccer players� experiences of gender equity practices at universities and the implications for the structures and practices of equitable soccer organisations. The concept of soccer stakeholders in this study represents both those at leadership level, soccer administrators, and those actively participating in soccer, male and female soccer players in the universities.This study uses a feminist qualitative methodology and semi-structured individual interviews with four soccer stakeholders and 16 senior soccer players, that is, eight females and eight males, for individual interviews. In addition, focus group interviews with women only and mixed gender interviews were conducted per institution. A major finding from the study suggests the dominance of a discourse of equal and same opportunity and treatment, which was disconnected from the understandings of power, and the lack of problematising the treatment of women as �add-on� to the supposedly natural and hierarchical structure of soccer. In addition, gender equity as a superficial practice and �favours for women� discourses suggest the prevailing male bias in which women�s participation in soccer continues to be viewed as secondary and less valuable than men�s. Rationalising discourses for continued male dominance in soccer suggests that gender equality is �conditional� for women�s teams, because the different levels of soccer they are playing at are not considered or valued the same as the men. Other key findings suggest that, firstly, the four universities did not have the gender equity policy in soccer and soccer administrators did not consider the importance of a specific and directed policy in soccer. Secondly, the results on the experiences of gender (in)equity practices in the universities corroborated the lack of support for women�s soccer and women soccer players� experiences of marginalisation and neglect. The findings suggest that women�s soccer continues to experience inequity practices in soccer, that women�s soccer is devalued and secondary to male soccer, and that men�s soccer and men in soccer continue to be prioritised. Thirdly, the findings suggest that while the government�s sport policy is acknowledged, of concern is the lack of structures to develop soccer at grassroots level to ensure the sustainability of growth for boys� and girls� soccer. Furthermore, schools are identified as important institutions, particularly primary schools, to encourage and develop an interest in soccer for boys and girls, because they have paid little attention to the development of soccer for girls in different age groups, or to nurture continuity and motivation in various age groups, as compared to boys. Fourthly, there is a lack of passionate, serious, and committed people to implement and monitor the policy to make sure that the progress of gender equity practices are implemented and monitored in soccer. In addition, there is suspicion at the government�s lack of interrogating the continuing bias of the media in relation to the dominance of men�s soccer and lack of media coverage for women�s soccer. Fifth, the findings suggest that women are not playing a role in supporting their games and they need to take ownership of their soccer, because they seem to have surrendered the role of developing their soccer, and are reliant on men to develop girls� and women�s soccer. In addition, women who play soccer reportedly experience stigmatisation through name calling and questions about their physical appearance, sexuality, and dress code. Finally, given that soccer fields are contested �spaces� that have been traditionally and �naturally� declared for men, research that prioritises interrogating and problematising men�s perceptions of women�s soccer and issues of gender equity practices in soccer is needed in a democratic South Africa.
Narratives of constructing as gay and having relationships in contemporary South Africa
(University of the Western Cape, 2010) Henderson, Neil; Shefer, Tamara; Bozalek, Vivienne; Dept. of Social Work; Faculty of Arts
This study examined how gay men construct a gay identity and have relationships within a heteronormative (Kritzinger, 2005) society in South Africa. The impact of this study is that homophobia continues to persist within different levels of society despite progressive legislation (Republic of South Africa, 1998; Republic of South Africa, 2006; Republic of South Africa, 2007), that gender binarisms persist in gay relationships, that power differences impact and shape gay relationships, and that resistance and transgression to heteronormativity were present in some of the narratives. The qualitative study employed a semi-structured guide with in-depth interviews. Sampling procedures that were utilised were snowball sampling in a non-probability sample. Data was collected via an MP3 player and each interview was transcribed and analysed using content and narrative analysis. I-poems using the listening guide (Gilligan et al, 2003) were constructed in six of the narratives. The sample distribution included 15 gay men aged between 20 to 46 years. Of these, 12 participants were black (6 coloured, 3 Indians, 3 African) and 3 were white.
An exploratory study of experiences of parenting among a group of school-going adolescent mothers in a South African township
(University of the Western Cape, 2010) Ngabaza, Sisa; Shefer, Tamara; Women and Gender Studies; Faculty of Arts
This study explored adolescent girls' subjective experiences of being young mothers in school, focusing on their personal and interpersonal relationships within their social contexts. Participants included 15 young black mothers aged between 16 and 19 years from three high schools in Khayelitsha, Cape Town. Conducted within a feminist social constructionist framework, the study adopted an exploratory qualitative structure. Data were collected through life histories that were analysed within a thematic narrative framework. The narratives revealed that the young mothers found motherhood challenging and overly disruptive of school. Although contexts of childcare emerged as pivotal in how young mothers balanced motherhood and schoolwork, these were also presented as characterised by notions of power and control. Because of the gendered nature of care work, the women who supported the young mothers with childcare dominated the mothering spheres. The schools were also experienced as controlled and regulated by authorities in ways that constrained the young mothers balancing of school and parenting. Equally constraining to a number of adolescent mothers were structural challenges, for example, parenting in spaces that lacked resources. These challenges were compounded by the immense stigma attached to adolescent motherhood. The study recommended that the Department of Education work closely with all the parties concerned in ensuring that pregnant learners benefit from the policy. It is necessary that educators are encouraged to shift attitudes so that communication with adolescent mothers is improved.
Creating 'space' for publication: challenges faced by women academic staff members at historically Black South African universities
(University of the Western Cape, 2003) Maurtin-Cairncross, Anita; Shefer, Tamara; Women and Gender Studies; Faculty of Arts
In this study an attempt was made to explore the challenges with regard to publications experienced by academic women at three selected Historically Black Universities (HBUs). Although based predominantly within a feminist qualitative metholodogical framework, both qualitative and quantitative research methods were used in this study. Based on the findings of the study, the recommendations illustrated participants' responses. Some of the recommendations illustrated participants' expressed need of staff development with a specific focus on training in publication skills; mentoring and support networks; assistance and support for their publishing venture at both institutional and departmental level and the development of strategies that would assist academic women in 'juggling' their personal and academic roles.

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