The South African Commission for Gender Equality Addressing Challenges of Rural Women

Abstract

Over the years, empowerment of women has increasingly attracted huge attention in the scholarly world. Most of the scholarly works on empowerment seem to focus on pro-women policies, which appear attractive only on paper without critically paying attention to how those policies translate into reality. In South Africa, rural women continue to suffer despite the nation having one of the best constitutions globally. The South African Commission for Gender Equality (CGE), among other roles, is man dated to advance the concerns for the rural women. The main aim of this study is to investigate setbacks but also opportunities that the CGE encounters in fulfilling its mandate of addressing strategic gender interests of rural women. The paper also interrogates the social cultural challenges that those women face in accessing their rights through the CGE. The main geographical scope for this study is KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape provinces because they are the areas populated with the Zulu and Xhosa communities who are the main targets of social cultural complexities highlighted in this paper. The study arrives at its findings through a qualitative study where data was analysed and corroborated with CGE operational documents, provisions in the Constitution, policy documents, monetary and evaluation reports, minutes of proceedings and paper publications. The study argues that the CGE cannot effectively empower rural women when the link with other statutory bodies and Civil Society Organizations nationally is weak. Also, the study argues that for CGE to effectively empower rural women, it must directly relate with local women and consult them from the grassroots and not solely rely on “elitist women” who risk misrepresenting or even ‘under-representing’ women interests.