Vivian Besem Ojong

Empowerment or Reconstituted Subordination? Dynamics of Gender Identities in the Lives of Professional African Migrant Women in South Africa

Abstract This article examines the ways in which the migration of African professional women from Cameroon, Zambia, Nigeria, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda and Congo into South Africa in pursuit of empowerment opportunities is affecting power relations in the family and the implications of their new social and economic responsibilities on their gender identities. Using a qualitative approach, we examine the incongruities in these women’s lives as they walk the tightrope of balancing between exercising their autonomy buttressed by their professional qualifications and economic independence, on the one hand, and the requirement to submit to traditional gender roles that are grounded in the ancient precedents of patriarchal domination and religion. This article argues for confronting ideological, socio-cultural as well as the material basis of African women’s subordination to men and aspiring for their empowerment that encompasses both the economic as well as the socio-cultural realms.

The thin/thick body ideal: Zulu women's body as a site of cultural and postcolonial feminist struggle

abstract This Perspective explores how cultural identity impacts on the gendered construction by Zulu-speaking women of ideal body size and the various means through which women choose to exercise agency around their bodies. We report on a research study conducted among 45 female and five male participants drawn mainly from the Durban-based University of KwaZulu-Natal, Howard College campus, conducted between 2010 and 2011. The study considers how patriarchal discourses contribute to womens body size ideal, and womens response to traditional and global symbolism of their bodies. The analysis employs two theoretical frameworks, critical medical anthropology (CMA) and postcolonial feminist theory. CMA allowed us to critically question the notion of body size ideal of Zulu-speaking women and unmask the origin of larger structures of construction in what Singer (1995: 90) terms “systems-challenging praxis”. Through CMA, we understand that the female body is the “terrain where social truths are forged and social contradictions played out, as well as the locus of personal resistance, activity, and struggle” (Scheper-Hughes and Lock, 1987: 16), while the lens of postcolonial feminism reveals the body politics that contribute to womens agency and ideas around the ideal body. Through various discourses the participants decipher the meanings inscribed on their bodies. The Perspective exposes how gender and race contribute to perceptions of black womens body ideal.

Academic travel : travelling for work.

Abstract This paper endeavours to show how academics become part of cross-cultural production, cultural circulation and ideological circulation. The stand-point of analysis of this paper is the individualised process of academic participation in tourism and the by-product of their participation. This paper is not intended to make academics that travel to conferences look opportunistic, yet the difference from mainstream tourism is that it is part of academic portfolio. Other tourists travel to places to unwind and rest but with an academic tourist, that point of disconnection is not there. This is part of valuable experience. Once an academic is highly connected that academic becomes highly successful. Attending a conference is not only about presenting a paper but also about connecting with people.

“She does not want to cook for me”: Zulu women and food preparation at the crossroads of courtship and dating

abstract Women continue to play critical roles in our society both formally and informally. One such role; especially in the private space of the home, is the expectation placed on a woman to prepare food. Such expectations have generated embedded meanings for Zulu women, who are the focus of this study. In this study five men in courtship relationships with women were interviewed. We show through in-depth interviews of 20 women (10 working and 10 non-working), five men and two focus groups how contemporary Zulu women reproduce, resist and rebel against gender cultural constructions in the context of food preparation for men during dating and courtship. We analyse the women’s behaviour using Hofstede’s ‘uncertainty avoidance index’ and ‘indulgence versus self-restraint’ concepts to explain the women’s positioning and struggle with two forms of identity. In 1988 Mohanty warned against the danger of Western feminism trapping the African woman into a fixed subordinated identity. This current research shows how African women are resisting a cultural requirement and how they are trapped by it as they try to exercise agency. The findings show that Zulu women want to apply the current knowledge of women’s empowerment but find it difficult because they cannot divorce themselves from their cultural context; they feel that the discourses of women’s empowerment (especially pertaining to the area of food preparation during dating and courtship) is not practical in their context. The findings revealed through a patriarchal lens how men in such relationships positioned themselves at privilege to benefit from cultural gender expectations of women, and how through the negotiating power of the women they are still able to give away some power.