Women and citizenship struggles: A case of the Western Cape, South Africa 1980-2004.
This thesis examines grassroots women's political activism in the Western Cape, South Africa (SA) during the 1980-1994 phase and their struggles to achieve citizenship. Through tracing the history of women's political agency and the social and political forces that shaped women's resistance, this dissertation asserts that women profoundly contributed to the New SA. Motherhood was the legitimate space granted to them by the liberation movement but women transformed it into an empowering public role, affirming their demands for citizenship. The shifting nature of women's resistance, the dominant discourses that mobilised them, what forms they took and how they changed over time are explored. The thesis asserts that despite the obstacles of a patriarchal culture relegating women's issues as secondary and a repressive state, women's focussed struggles succeeded in uniting diverse women to make effective intervention. This culminated in participating in negotiations for a new SA. A secondary focus examines the transition from apartheid to a 'women-friendly' SA. This study argues that private carework of women should be inscribed as citizenship responsibilities. Presently the SA State strategy promoting women's citizenship is through welfare. For women's effective citizenship it is imperative that there is a balance between women as workers and welfare beneficiaries, and that women participate as decision-makers at all levels. By comparing the demands of The Women's Charter for Effective Equality (1994) with the 1994-2004 reality of women and by analysing what women themselves state, I assess women's citizenship. This thesis concludes that the achievement thus far of the feminist citizenship project is uneven. The impressive constitution contributes to the improvement of many women's lives. However, the sporadic implementation of gender-sensitive policies, failure to address poverty, high levels of violence against women and the negative impact of culture and religion are some of the obstacles to women's comprehensive citizenship.
Gender Rights Within the Framework of Traditional or Group Cultural Norms and Rights
The broad objectives of the Gender, Culture and Rights workshop included examining gender rights within the framework of traditional or group cultural norms and rights, and examining masculine identities and their relationship to women's status and wellbeing. The first two sessions of the workshop, which are the subject of this focus, fall within the former objective. The theme of the first session addressed the nexus between gender, rights, culture and law, while the second session addressed the nexus between gender, rights, culture and religion. In considering some of the issues raised by the speakers and participants, it was apparent that, both individually and collectively, these are contested areas in terms of understandings, interpretations and challenges. Amongst and between participants and speakers, there were different views both about these concepts, as well as the linkages between them. It seemed apparent that there was an absence of common acceptance that cultures are products of history, place, politics and people, and change over time' and that '... individuals form and change their cultural environments, through accepting or resisting the norms with which they live' oolly, 2002). Jolly's research leads her to understand culture to be diverse and dynamic, formed by internal and external influences and structured by representations and power. She asserts that charges of western imposition are often made in response to gender interventions, and that this could be interpreted as being accurate, or simply a politically motivated effort to obstruct transformation of gender relations, or both. Charges of interference with the culture/religion of others and/or betrayal of one's own culture/religion, are part of the challenges facing activists who advocate for change in gender relations, and who challenge cultural and religious practices which violate substantive gender equality norms and principles. In the context of South Africa, fundamental rights especially the right to equality, dignity and freedom are entrenched in the Constitution of 1996 and are, in fact, given pride of place. Although the Constitution recognises and protects the right to culture, language and religion, it also limits these rights by providing that the exercise of such rights should not contravene other rights entrenched in the Bill of Rights. In practice, this has effectively meant that both customary and keywords
Corpus Linguistics in Legal Discourse
There are many different ways in which modern Corpus Linguistics can be used to enrich and broaden our understanding of legal discourse. Based on the central principle of co-occurrence and co-selection in language construction, this paper reviews current applications of Corpus Linguistics in the area of legal discourse focusing on issues ranging from phraseology, variation in legal discourse, legal translation, register and genre perspectives on legal discourse, legal discourse in forensic contexts to evaluative language in judicial settings. It revisits the notion of ‘corpus’ and it highlights the relevance of various types of legal corpora and computer tools in legal linguistic research.