Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Acknowledgements
- Table of Contents
- Acronyms and Abbreviations
- Foreword
- Foreword
- Preface
- Preface
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Contradictions in Memorialising Liberation History
- Chapter 2 Memorialisation as a Force for Radical Transformation: The Case of Freedom Park in South Africa
- Chapter 3 Freedom Park as a Place of Memory: Symbolic Reparations, Indigenous African Knowledge Systems and Reconciliation
- Chapter 4 Memory and Socioeconomic Transformation in South Africa
- Chapter 5 Homeland Manifestations—A Postapartheid Denigration of Social Cohesion
- Chapter 6 The Historical Transformation of Male Initiation Politicalcultural Practices and its Role in Nation-Building: The Case of the Western Cape Province
- Chapter 7 Memory, Knowledge and Freedom: From Dismemberment and Re-Membering
- Chapter 8 Memory for Peace in War: A Case of Remembering and Rebuilding Postapartheid South Africa
- Chapter 9 Mending our Wounded Souls: Towards the Possibility of Healing and Social Cohesion
- Chapter 10 Reconciliation and Social Justice in South Africa: Still the Unfinished Business of the Trc?
- Chapter 11 Rising Violence: The Crisis of Broken Individuals
- Chapter 12 Social Memory through Posthumous Remembrance
- Chapter 13 Memorialising the Community Public Health Legacy of the Ribeiros
- Chapter 14 The Place of Memory in the Life and Work of Desmond Tutu
- Chapter 15 Memorialising the Untold Stories of Women, for Transformation
- Chapter 16 On and of Memories: Understanding Women’S Stories, Stitched Perceptions and the Rupture of Violence in their Lives
- Chapter 17 Memories of, and Reflections on, Broadcasting in South Africa
- Chapter 18 Press Freedom 25 years Postindependence: Challenges and Solutions for the South African Model
- Chapter 19 Universities of Science and Technology for Rural Development as Freedom and Justice: The Politics of Evidence and Decision
- Chapter 20 The Centre, the Periphery and Selfhood: Rethinking the Role of African Languages for Radical Transformation
- Chapter 21 Memorialising the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania
- Chapter 22 To Sing or not to Sing: The Protest Song in South Africa Today
- Chapter 23 Shared Dreams: Creative Art—From Collective Memory to Social Transformation
- Chapter 24 (Social) Anchor as Opposite to Tumbleweed: The Naming of “Things” As Memory and Anchor, Repression as Erosion and Dislocation
- Chapter 25 Memorialising Freedom During Covid-19 Lockdown in South Africa
- Chapter 26 The Political Economy and Ethics of Global Solidarity in Covid-19
- About the Contributors
Chapter 15 - Memorialising the Untold Stories of Women, for Transformation
- Frontmatter
- Acknowledgements
- Table of Contents
- Acronyms and Abbreviations
- Foreword
- Foreword
- Preface
- Preface
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Contradictions in Memorialising Liberation History
- Chapter 2 Memorialisation as a Force for Radical Transformation: The Case of Freedom Park in South Africa
- Chapter 3 Freedom Park as a Place of Memory: Symbolic Reparations, Indigenous African Knowledge Systems and Reconciliation
- Chapter 4 Memory and Socioeconomic Transformation in South Africa
- Chapter 5 Homeland Manifestations—A Postapartheid Denigration of Social Cohesion
- Chapter 6 The Historical Transformation of Male Initiation Politicalcultural Practices and its Role in Nation-Building: The Case of the Western Cape Province
- Chapter 7 Memory, Knowledge and Freedom: From Dismemberment and Re-Membering
- Chapter 8 Memory for Peace in War: A Case of Remembering and Rebuilding Postapartheid South Africa
- Chapter 9 Mending our Wounded Souls: Towards the Possibility of Healing and Social Cohesion
- Chapter 10 Reconciliation and Social Justice in South Africa: Still the Unfinished Business of the Trc?
- Chapter 11 Rising Violence: The Crisis of Broken Individuals
- Chapter 12 Social Memory through Posthumous Remembrance
- Chapter 13 Memorialising the Community Public Health Legacy of the Ribeiros
- Chapter 14 The Place of Memory in the Life and Work of Desmond Tutu
- Chapter 15 Memorialising the Untold Stories of Women, for Transformation
- Chapter 16 On and of Memories: Understanding Women’S Stories, Stitched Perceptions and the Rupture of Violence in their Lives
- Chapter 17 Memories of, and Reflections on, Broadcasting in South Africa
- Chapter 18 Press Freedom 25 years Postindependence: Challenges and Solutions for the South African Model
- Chapter 19 Universities of Science and Technology for Rural Development as Freedom and Justice: The Politics of Evidence and Decision
- Chapter 20 The Centre, the Periphery and Selfhood: Rethinking the Role of African Languages for Radical Transformation
- Chapter 21 Memorialising the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania
- Chapter 22 To Sing or not to Sing: The Protest Song in South Africa Today
- Chapter 23 Shared Dreams: Creative Art—From Collective Memory to Social Transformation
- Chapter 24 (Social) Anchor as Opposite to Tumbleweed: The Naming of “Things” As Memory and Anchor, Repression as Erosion and Dislocation
- Chapter 25 Memorialising Freedom During Covid-19 Lockdown in South Africa
- Chapter 26 The Political Economy and Ethics of Global Solidarity in Covid-19
- About the Contributors
Summary
“Malibongwe! Wathint’abafazi Wathint’imbokodo!!”
This chapter looks at the untold and misrepresented stories of women in South Africa. The argument made here, is that the exclusion of “her story” distorts “our story” as South Africans, and weakens (if not defeats) our resolve to build a “united, democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous South Africa” (RSA, 1996), as our constitution calls on us to do. The chapter also calls on Freedom Park to offer a platform for women to tell their stories. A few suggestions are put forward on the actions that women can take in their continued struggle for gender equality in South Africa.
According to Jane Mufamadi (2018):
It is not enough to measure the contribution made by struggles of heroes and heroines and other icons of the struggle by their capacity for enduring excruciating pain in the past, their memory must retain elements that help us live fully [in] the present. Their achievements must strengthen and enrich our principles of action in present-day struggles such as racism, tribalism, elitism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia and exclusion. Recalling the past, therefore, must find justification through a process of interpretation and evaluation.
It is for this reason that we, as South African women, must tell our story for lessons to be drawn and tools to be sharpened for future battles. While it is true that “there is no such thing as the ‘voiceless’ […] [t]here are only the deliberately silenced or the preferably silenced” (Roy, 2004), as South African women we have been rendered voiceless, with our story not being properly and fully told. Our story is often tacked on as an addendum, a post-script, a flimsy mention or footnote in an otherwise supposedly bigger and more important story centred on male actions. Even that “tacked-on story” is not usually told from our perspectives, experiences or knowledge, but rather it repeats the perspectives of “others”, mainly in the “malestream” (a play on the word “mainstream” often used in current feminist discourse) and/or global media. As Maya Angelou (1969) argues, “[t]here is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside”.
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- Information
- Social Memory as a Force for Social and Economic Transformation , pp. 176 - 184Publisher: University of South AfricaPrint publication year: 2021