Introduction The 1995 publication, Defiant Desire: Gay and Lesbian Lives in South Africa (Gevisser and Cameron, 1995), pioneered a new field of study that is yet to be fully recognised in South Africa. This rich collection, written by South Africans across the country, assembled a wide range of gay, lesbian and, although unnamed, transgender experiences.
Category: Feature
African Women Do Not Look Good in Wigs: Gender, Beauty Rituals and Cultural Identity in Anglophone Cameroon, 1961-1972
“Nebuchadnezzar lived in the bush and his nails became so long that they looked like claws of cats, following a punishment from God for his disobedience,” runs a May 1964 letter to ‘Women’s Special,’ a dedicated women’s advice column for the English-language newspaper, the Cameroon Times (Isuk, 1964:4).
Nudity, Protest and the Law in Uganda
By Sylvia Tamale The human body is itself a politically inscribed entity, its physiology and morphology shaped by histories and practices of containment and control. Susan Bordo (1993: 21) I view law(s) as an authorized discourse — as a language constituted by a series of symbols that is located in not merely the realm of the…
Reflections on Feminist Organising in Angola
By Aurea Mouzinho and Sizaltina Cutaia Context In the contemporary postcolonial history of Africa, Angola is known as the site of one of the most treacherous conflicts that has ravaged the continent. After independence from Portugal in 1975, the 27-year civil war among the three leading liberation movements — the Popular Movement for the Liberation…