Abstract
Life for South African women post-apartheid reflects both legislative advances and lingering challenges. Despite progress in the post-apartheid world, South Africa is still characterized by a high level of economic disparity, meaning that daily life for individual women can be quite different depending on one’s race, socioeconomic status, and age. Thus, the concept of intersectionality is critical to understand what it means to be a woman in South Africa today. Despite advances in girls’ access to education at both the primary and secondary levels, women still face significant challenges when they enter the workforce by way of occupational segregation and stratification. As is the case internationally, South African women are also more likely to engage in unpaid work and to be employed in the informal sector. Taken together, these make it more likely that South African women live in poverty and become victims of interpersonal violence. With respect to health, the risk of HIV infection and the transmission of HIV from mother to baby are paramount concerns for South African women’s health. Recent advances, however, suggest that women are gaining access to quality HIV screening and treatment. Many programs exist in the country to empower women. Two such initiatives are reviewed here: one that empowers women through microfinance loans and a second that promotes self-efficacy and HIV prevention in adolescent girls through a sports-based intervention. In spite of a host of challenges, South African women are enterprising, strong, and resilient.
You strike the women, you strike the rock.
—(South African History Archive, 2016)
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Suggested Readings and Resources for Further Study
African National Congress. (2014). Women and poverty discussion document. Retrieved from http://www.anc.org.za/docs/discus/2014/women_povertyj.pdf
Mayosi, B. M., & Benatar, S. R. (2014). Health and health care in South Africa—20 years after Mandela. The New England Journal of Medicine, 371, 1344–1353. doi:10.1056/NEJMsr1405012
Moletsane-Kekae, M. (2009). The experiences of abused South African Women in shelters. Asian Women, 25, 49–68. doi:10.14431/aw.2009.06.25.2.49
ONE. (2015). Status of women and girls in South Africa 2015. Towards the United Nation General Assembly meeting on the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Retrieved from https://s3.amazonaws.com/one.org/pdfs/Status-of-women-and-girls-in-South-Africa-2015.pdf
UNICEF. (2014/2015). Biennial report South Africa. Retrieved from https://www.unicef.org/southafrica/SAF_resources_biennialreport14_15.pdf
Women Department Republic of South Africa. (2015). The report on the status of women in the South African economy. Retrieved from http://www.gov.za/sites/www.gov.za/files/Status_of_women_in_SA_economy.pdf
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Gibbons, J.L., Poelker, K.E., Moletsane-Kekae, M. (2017). Women in South Africa: Striving for Full Equality Post-apartheid. In: Brown, C., Gielen, U., Gibbons, J., Kuriansky, J. (eds) Women's Evolving Lives. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58008-1_8
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