Intersectionality of Gender, Race and Class: Experiences of Black South African Women

Apartheid signage, 1953. 

Photo credit: Drum Social Histories / Baileys African History

Archive / Africa Media Online

South Africa has a rich history of racial oppression and discrimination. Until the early 1990s, it was legally segregated, under the apartheid regime imposed by the white ruling class. The apartheid government forced the black population to move to separate “homelands”. The living conditions in the “homelands” were very poor with inadequate access to basic services such as water (Lomax, 2014). Post-Apartheid, poverty and inequality still strongly prevail and the wealthy people still maintain their greater access to resources. In my last few posts, I have spoken about the intersectionality of race, ethnicity, class and gender and how it creates a unique experience of marginalisation. Today I will be continuing this by exploring the experiences of black South African women with water.

SA has one highest amount of female headed households in Africa, according to the Departmentof Health, Medication Research Council (2007), nearly 50% of all households in SA are female headed. This due to combination of complex reasons including prevalence of HIV and AIDS economic conditions and migration. Consequently, these women are responsible for the triple burden of providing economic and emotional support while also performing the household tasks (Bradshaw et al, 2013). With the privatisation of public services including water, many people cannot afford to pay to their bills and so are consequently cut off from the water line (Kehler,2001). This has several gendered implications - when the water is cut off, women have to rely on far away, potentially un-safe sources to look after the children and the elderly, cook and clean. Furthermore, collection of water can be very time consuming and so could hinder the women’s potential to generate an income.

One of the efforts taken to reverse the inequalities brought about by the Apartheid system was the National Water Act (1988). Under the act, the Water User Associations (WUAs) were created . The National Water Act and WUAs were introduced with the aim to transfer the responsibility of water management back to the community (Ahlers et al, 2011). However, such schemes have largely failed to incorporate the views of the black community members, particularly the women. Kemerink et al's (2013) research on the WUA in the Thukela River Basin highlights this. Despite 85% of the community being Black and 5% white, each group was equally distributed in the committee with 5 members each. Furthermore, only 1 person in the committee is black woman. Her role in the committee was severely undermined and questioned by white male committee members, one of whom stated - ‘the black woman from the township who sits in the management committee is growing some tomatoes in a little garden or so. I don’t know what she will use more water for, she does not need it'. He suggests that she doesn’t need any water, clearly suggesting that he and other members are unable to understand the need and interests of the black female committee members.

It is extremely clear that the damage created by years of segregation on the ground of race, ethnicity, class and gender still impacts South African society today. The privatisation of water in many parts of SA means that black women still remained disadvantaged, and so hindering their socio-economic progress. While legislations such as the National Water Act appear to bring about changes in paper but these changes have not translated in the practice.