1 HISTORY WORKSHOP CONFERENCE
 UNIVERSITY OF THE WnWATERSRAND
 JULY 1994
 The Women's naked protest, DobsonviUe 1990:
 Gender Consciousness and the Body Politic1
 (Draft - Not xo be quoted)
 by
 Sheila Meintjes
 Department of Political Studies
 University of the Whwatersrand
 On 12 July 1990 the Soweto municipal police, with the South African Police, arrived with
 teargas, dogs, a Casspir and a bulldozer to raze to the ground some 60 Illegal' shacks
 erected in no-man's land between Dobsanville extension 1 and 2, both areas of 'spanking
 new high-cost residential area'1. The shacks had been erected some two weeks earlier
 by a group of homeless Sowetans, mainly women, who, for years, had lived precariously
 as highly exploited tenants in shack-dwellings in the backyards of those with houses. The
 eviction of the newly established squatter settlement on this empty land in the cold
 winter of the second week of July 1990 was witnessed by neighbouring Dobsonville
 inhabitants, the Dobsonville civic a group of women and young activists from
 Mshenguville, a squatter settlement alongside White City, Jabavu, and members of the
 national and international press, and, later that evening, television viewers across South
 Africa and world-wide. The reason? The squatter settlement had been declared illegal
 and the Dobsonville Town Clerk, Mr Tony Roux, acquired a court order to remove the
 squatters. The squatters in turn had tried, through the Soweto Civic Association (SCA),
 to get a court interdict to prevent the removal of their shacks. The erection of shacks
 on this piece of land was part of a strategy to draw attention to the plight of the
 homeless in Dobsonvifle, Soweto. The strategy had been accompanied by squatter pickets
 outside the town council offices.' The press reported the details of the negotiations and
 the protest action, and were present upon the expiry of the deadline for squatters to
 remove their shacks. The process was a public spectacle.
 When the police arrived on the morning of the 12th July, with dogs and bulldozer in tow,
 the shacks were still intact. As the police moved to dismantle the shacks, the younger
 'This paper is presented in loving memory of Belede Mazwai, who died in April 1992
 whilst we were conducting our research. Working together, as women from widely
 divergent backgrounds, was a mutually enriching experience. We were exploring the
 dynamics of our own relationship as much as we were attempting to understand the
 dynamics of our relationship with our informants-in the research context. We were
 hoping to offer this experience as part of our research findings. This aspect of our work
 was cut short by Belede's iragic and untimely death.
 2Citv Press. 15 July 1990, plO, article by Nat Diseko
 'The Sowetan 13 July 1990
women shad;-dwellers stripped off their clothes, taunted the police, yullulatedl shouted
 in angsr about their plight and their pain, and sang and danced and held up printed
 placards demanding homes and security of tenure. That evening national and
 international television networks featured this action in news headlines. The next day,
 photographs of the women naked and semi-naked adorned the front page of The Star
 and appeared in other newspapers as well. What raised comment and was so unusual
 about this event and acquired such publicity was not simply the fact that squatters were
 being moved, an event common to South African urban life, but the particular form that
 the protest look. It was relatively peaceful, with only a few incidents of stone throwing
 by youths from the neighbouring shanty settlement of Mshenguville. At Phola Park and
 in Thokoza at the same time, squatters and police had used firearms, and people had
 died. Most notable, though, was that the action was dominated largely by women. But
 more than these factors, was the women's strategy of throwing off their clothes in an
 effort to fend off the police, hoping to chase ihem away and stop them from demolishing
 their shacks. Above all their strategy was to draw attention to themselves.
 Unlike many of the protests around lack of shelter and urban rights at that time, this
 event is still remembered today, four years later, by ordinary people, television viewers
 and newpaper readers. It is remembered precisely because of the fact that the women
 protestors stripped and stood naked baring their most intimate, private selves in a pubBc
 gesture of protest The protest occurred in the context of a series of land invasions and
 housing actions which took place all over the Reef during 1990. The particular form that
 the Dobsonville protest took, however, raises a number of questions about the nature
 of women's particular perspective in the struggles over housing. Their action raises
 questions too about the way in which women engage in issues of popular protest Is there
 any connection between the mode of women's protest and their place in civil society?
 What significance are analysts to give to the sexual symbolism expressed in the women's
 actions?
 In this paper I attempt to strip off the layers presented in some of the narratives of
 different groups involved in the protest action to try and answer these questions.* I also
 attempt to present the narrative of my experience and that of my research assistants b
 conducting the research, in order to provide further insight into the reality of our
 informants everyday lives. The research process itself became a dimension of the
 complex interrelationships of power which form the texture of life for the women we
 interviewed. In presenting the story of the event in this way, I hope to show the diverse
 ways in which women's social needs and political responses are mediated and controlled.
 In many parts of Africa at different historical moments women have expressed protest
 through nakedness, using their bodies to shame society into responding to their needs.
 The particular relationship between women's status and power seems to be a key
 variable in explaining the use of the body in this way. The Dobsonville protest presents
 a particularly stark moment in which gender, class and civil status come together and
 enable an analysis of the combination of conditions under which women are politicised
 and the processes which led to their participation.
 'This is a preliminary draft, and presents some of my ideas. It is part of a larger
 project on women and public policy.
Before turning to the incident itself, I would first like to contextuaBse the theoretical
 aspects of my interest in this particular protest action. The strategy and response of
 women to their homelessness in 1990 raised questions about the political and social
 conditions which were conducive to the mobilisation of these women and raised
 questions about the processes which brought them together in an effective protest
 movement. The history of the mobilisation of these) women and the aftermath of their
 collective action seemed to encapsulate significant elements of'the nature'of black
 women's subordination under apartheid as well. Gender, race and class intersect to limit
 the choices and life chances of black women in ways different from black men as well
 as from other women. This has particular significance for the consciousness of women,
 and the manner of their participation or mobilization within broader popular movements.
 It was through the life-histories of the participants themselves, their everyday struggles
 that believed that I could come to understand the particular significance of using their
 bodies as'ameans of protest.5
 The interpersonal aspects of the dynamics of the binding process in the protest strategy
 and action seemed also to tie in to larger questions about the gendered nature of civil
 status.. It was hard to imagine men using their bodies in a similar act of protest, and I
 can think of no masculine example of this sort of action. The question seemed to be
 important in terms of the gendered construction of subjectivity and of citizenship; even
 in the construction of a second-class black citizen in South Africa, a dichotomy was
 established between the status of men and women. This had implications for women's
 independent access to state provided resources such as housing and welfare in the past.
 If the transition to a new democratic order is to embrace all- citizens, it will be
 imperative that gender become an important signlfier for redressing past exclusions.
 During the next five years of Constitution-making under a government of national unity
 South Africa will see the emergence of a new citizenship model It is vital that this
 citizenship takes into account gender and class, as much as race, if a substantive equality
 is to be achiewsd6
 Afrikaner nationalism had triumphed after the second world war and apartheid emerged
 to construct an exclusive racial democracy and an exclusive 'white' citizenship, which
 basically built on the segregationism of the previous era. The Reserves were
 transformed into Bantustans to serve as areas for ethnic and cultural self government
 and development The language of rights and citizenship in the Bantustans was used by
 the apartheid regime to legitimise the entrenchment of white privilege and exclusive
 democratic rights in the national heartland The system was characterised by exploitation,
 control and repression. Urban black South Africans were accepted as secondary citizens
 SI have been particularly influenced in my approach by the suggestive article by
 Karen B Sachs "What's a life story got to do with it?' in The Personal Narratives Group
 (eds) Interpreting Women's lives: Feminist theory and personal narratives Indiana
 University Press, Bloomington, 1989.
 'Feeding into this debate are the results of a nation-wide participatory research
 project conducted by the Women's National Coalition during 1993 which addressed the
 problems and aspirations of women in all sectors of society in order to draw up a
 Women's Charter for Effective Equality. This Charter identifies those areas which need
 to be changed for women to enjoy full equality in South Africa.
without democratic rights, but with limited rights of access to jobs and security of tenure.
 The Urban Areas Act and its subsequent revisions entrenched the rights of certain
 categories of people whilst attempting to exclude the migrant labour population.7 The
 attempts by the state to stem the tide of urbanisation, limit class and racial integration
 were met with intense and bitter popular resistance from the 1950s. There was fierce
 resistance in particular to the moves to control the uiban migration and settlement of
 black women.
 Women had not been included in initial regulations to control the migrant labour
 population and the utban settlements largely, it would seem, by an oversight caused by
 gender-blindness. The 1923 Native (Urban Areas) Act referred' only to 'pass-bearing^
 natives. Women did not carry passes, so were excluded from the controls established by
 the Act.5 During the 1940s the municipal authorities urged changes to the legislation
 and controls over single women's movement to towns. They argued that these women
 were responsible for crime, delinquency and moral decay because they escaped the
 moderating influence of traditional custom and the control of the patriarchal system.
 The issue was a politically explosive one in the black community, and for this reason had
 not been confronted head-on by the United Party Government The National Party had
 no such qualms.* Once the new National Party government began its combined slum-
 clearance and uiban development programme with the intent of tightening up in-
 migration and introducing more stringent labour controls, women's position came under
 the spotlight.10 Tne Urban Areas Act was amended to deal with this loop-hole in 1952.
 At the same time, the convention of granting access to housing to families, defined as
 a household head (husband), his wife and dependents was entrenched in regulations. The
 combined effect of legislation and regulation on women's status and life chances and
 strategies was profound. The new legislative procedure dtew women more fully into the
 control framework established by apartheid.
 Section 10 of the Urban Areas Act defined those born within the limits of urban
 magistracies, or those who had worked for the same employer for ten years, or who had
 been residents for fifteen years as legitimate uiban dwellers. These people had the right
 to live and work in urban areas and had privileged access to urban housing. However,
 for women and unmarried men this did not mean automatic access to housing. Housing
 was always a commodity in shorter supply than those in demand for it.
 Housing was at first under the direct control of municipal authorities, but with the state's
 efforts to centralise control over urbanisation during the 1960s, the Department of Bantu
 7Deborab Posel, Thp. Making of Apartheid ^^P'-'i96\: conflict and compromise.
 Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1991, examines in detail the consequences of policies and
 legislation pertaining to influx control. She shows how migrants were still able to acquire
 urban rights in spite of the limits of legislation and the Urban Labour Preference Policy.
 'See T.R.H.Davenport, 'African Townsmen? South African Natives (Urban Areas)
 Legislation through the Years', African Affairs 58/271 (1969)
 *See Posel, TTje making of apartheid. SO
 lcSee successive Surveys of Race Relations
Administration and Development took over. After 1971 the provision of housing and
 access to it was transferred to the authority of the Bantu Affairs Administration Boards,
 which were directly responsible to the Department of Bantu Administration and
 Development11 However, even before this development, there was a freeze on urban
 housing construction from 1968. Community Councils, introduced in 1977 in an effort
 to give a gloss of accountablility for housing to black urban local government were in
 fact under the control of the Minister who was responsible for housing provision.
 Initially given some credibility through local elections, the Community Councils became
 a means of limited patronage for encumbants, who were soon accused of
 mismanagement and corruption and became the focus of popular discontent.
 The 1970s saw a marked shift in the mobilization of opposition in South Africa: the 1973
 strikes heralded the beginnings of a new phase in trade union organisation. The Soweto
 student riots in 1976 carved out a new terrain of opposition to aparthied. The nature
 of opposition is well captured by John Brewer when he suggested that what occurred
 after 1976 was the 'politicization of ordinary aspects of everyday life'.u At the same
 time a more strategic logic permeated political contest, which was derived from the
 approach of the trade union movement in the dictum Vhen weak, organise; when strong,
 negotiate*.15 This thinkir^ only came to influence community organisation after violent
 confrontation in the mid- 1980s persuaded participants from both the civics and the state
 that negotiation was the only way forward.
 The consequence of the housing shortage which, as we have seen, derived from the
 policies of the 1950s and 1960s, was chronic overcrowding and the emergence of a highly
 exploitative leaseholder-tenant system. Legal residents on township waiting lists were
 forced to Eve in backyard shacks, some constructed by leaseholders especially for the
 purpose of renting out, but most often shacks were owned by the inhabitants who paid
 a kind of ground rent. Overcrowding became the norm. Waiting-lists for houses in black
 townships were long, and how those lists were administered was a process which became
 notoriously open to abuse, as evidence from the cohort of women who engaged in the
 Dobsonville protest reveal. Indeed, because it was men who had access to housing, it
 was largely women-headed families which were forced to become tenants, unable to
 acquire houses in their own right. Moreover, for migrants who did not fall within the
 rights established by Section 10, life came to be lived in the twilight zone of illegality and
 insecurity, informal or illegal employment, and subject to arbitrary police swoops, the law
 courts, fines they could Hi-afford and finally endorsement out of the urban area.
 "See Jeremy Grest, The Crisis of Local Government in South Africa' in PJFrankel,
 N.Pines & MSwilling (eds), State. Resistance .and. Change, in South Africa. Southern
 Book Publishers, Johannesburg, 1968
 "John Brewer, *Black Strategies for change in a constrained society*, in Robert
 Schrire (ed) O7tie.pl Choices for South Afrira: an agenda for the 1990s. Oxford
 University Press, Cape Town, 1990. Ch 23, 430
 "See Mark Swilling 'City politics comes of agp: strategic responses to local
 government restructuring1 in Robert Schrire, Critical Choices for South Africa: an
 agenda for the 1990s. Oxford University Press, Cape Town, 1990, ch 22, 424
Following more than a decade of popular resistance to restrictions and urban conditions,
 the mid-1980s -saw- the removal of forma! distinctions between 'urban* and migrant
 residents. It was then that the urban population literally, burst its seams, as illegal
 squatter settlements burgeoned on the .urban peripheries. Demand for housing became
 a key issue in popular struggles of this period.Civic Associations, which.had begun to
 emerge in the late 1970s and early 1980s,.'acquired wide popular- support as they
 challenged urban Community Councils, which since 1982 had local government powers,
 although housing and township development was still centrally controlled.1* Pressure
 built up on government to release more land for urban .settlement and improve urban
 conditions, especiaUy in the development of housing policy. In the 1990s, part of the
 challenge to the Community Councils involved a strategy of squatter invasions of vacant
 lands adjacent to existing townships. The Dobsonville squatter action in July 1990 was
 one such movement
 The Soweto Civic Association (SCA) had fought for the recognition of its role in
 representing the interests of homeless people especially, but also of tenants in general
 since its inception in 1979.33 The SCA organised against the Soweto Community
 Council, members of which came to be seen as surrogates of the apartheid state at the
 local level as rent and service charges were increased. Opposition to the Council and
 Councillors crystallised around their control over access to housing. In theory as housing
 became available, it was given to those at the top of the waiting list In practice,
 councillors gave it to those who paid. More notorious were those councillors who
 provided housing to women in exchange for sex. Several of our informants deeply
 resented the sexual power asserted by one councillor in particular. They suggested that
 there were several women in Dobsonville who had acquired houses in this manner.
 Their choice of using their bodies in drawing attention to their homelessness was as
 much an ironic statement about the potential sexual contract involved in acquiring
 houses. ??? ? ?
 In response to growing problems of overcrowding, and the growth of shanty settlements
 on the periphery of urban townships, the SCA spearheaded the launch of Operation
 Masekane for the Homeless (OMHLE) in 1990. This initiative sought to confront the
 Soweto Council's unwillingness to address the issue of housing shortages and the plight
 of the homeless, The emergence of a widespread squatter crisis in 1990 was simply the
 outpouringof frustration which had been growing sioce influx control had been removed
 in 1985. Despite government recognition of the permanence of the urban African
 population, measures to limit and control informal urban settlement had continued
 Indeed, as Ann Bernstein of the Urban Foundation has argued, the Guide
 16g p
 Process limited the release of land for black settlement.16 Bernstein argues that
 **See Jeremy Seekings for a useful discussion of the conditions of political
 mobilisation Tolitical Mobilisation in the Black Townships of the Transvaal', in Philip
 Frankel, Noam Pines & Mark Swilling (eds), State, resistance and change- in South
 Africa^ Southern Book Publishers, Johannesburg,1988.
 ^bid, 203
 16Ann Bernsiein, *South Africa's cities - crisis managementorcourageous leadership',
 in Robert Schrire (ed) Critical Choices... Ch 13. 235-236
government policy was still geared towards influx control and that the reality of the
 greater concentration of people in urban metropoles was not being addressed. In 1989
 estimates put two 'million people living in informal settlements in the PWV. The
 unbanning of -the- African National Congress, the South African Communist Party and
 the Pan African Congress heralded not a decrease in popular pressure, but rather
 intensified demands for the redress of longstanding grievances. Women in particular
 became the protagonists in actions involving demands for housing.
 Our research into the women's protest action at DobsonviDe began at the end of 1991.
 Two research assistants; Belede Mazwai andLetabo Malegawent into Soweto.with a few
 clues to find the women who had been involved in the protest during those cold days of
 July 1990. We followed up people who had been quoted in the press reports, members
 of the SCA and the chairman of the local ANC branch. The women themselves had not
 been interviewed by the press. Reporters simply recorded their actions. B*en the
 television newsmen had not attempted to give voice to the women, except to visually
 record their naked protest for all the world to see. It proved quite easy to find some of
 the women. The squatter invasion of land in 1990 and successive protests by the same
 women had been successful in prompting the Transvaal Provincial Administration (TPA)
 to secure sites for them on land released for controlled site and service schemes. Most
 of the women who had been involved in the Dobsonville action had been granted sites
 in the new site and service scheme known as 'Snake Park' or Doornkop established by
 the TPA The TPA had been forced to provide sites or fece illegal land invasions in
 response to the demands and threats of the SCA. In this sense the outcome of the land
 invasions and the protest of July 1990 and its sequence were singularly successful in
 providing women with access to land
 The month of IJecember 1991 when we set out to find the women was one of the hottest
 months in years and South Africa was enduring one of the worst droughts in living
 history. Most of the participants were now living in Snake Park, in tin shacks nicknamed
 umkhukhu..Lcbicken coops. The shacks were unbearably hot in summer, and in winter,
 as we found out later, were unbearably cold. The streets were neatly laid out. A single
 tap serviced each street, about ten sites. Each site was also provided with a long-drop,
 which, in the heal, created a pervasive sweet-sour stench throughout the area. Rubbish
 was collected once a week at first, and each site had been provided with a rubbish bin.
 Two years later, mobile tips had replaced the weekly service. Tips are now located at
 various points throughout the settlement and collected at intervals. This service is
 organised by members of the civic who are paid a retainer for this work by the TPA,
 according to our informants. The settlement of about five thousand stands lies cfose to
 where the squatters had orginally set up their shacks in 1990, between l^obsonville
 extension 1 and2 andthe uncovered mine-dumps ofRandmines. When the wind blows,
 which it did much of the time we spent in the settlement in 1991, 1992 and some of
 1993, the place becomes a dust bowL The fine, pale sand of the dumps creeps through
 every crevice to coat every surface, it covers ones skin and hair, and it gets into eyes and
 mouth.
 When we found some of the women who had been involved, a few, especially the
 younger women, were pleased to have been sought out, and pleased that we wanted to
 record their experience and their histories. Our reception was not an unambiguous one,
 however. Some women thought we had come to provide them with houses. They
thought we were from the TPA;"and had no idea what The University was. Others
 questioned our intentions, and mentioned the problem of researchers simply using them
 for their own ends, without any benefit to themselves. We explained as clearly as we
 could that we were researchers from the University, that we were concerned with the
 position of women. We hoped that through the work we did not only could their needs
 as women be made known more widely and addressed in public policy, but also thai we
 wished to bring to wider attention the effects apartheid had had upon their lives. We
 also spoke about the opening of the negotiations and the constitutional process. We
 informed them, too, about the Women's National Coalition, a coalition which had been
 formed specifically to inform the new constitution-makers about the conditions, problems
 and needs of women like them.
 Whilst we met with the women first, to ask whether they would allow us to do research
 amongst them, we were also careful to inform members of the local civic association of
 our research intentions. We received a mixed reception. Our initial contacts had been
 helpful in putting us in touch with members of the Doornkop Civic who knew the
 women we wanted to meet. Through them we had set up an initial meeting with as
 many women and men as were available and interested in meeting us. Our next step was
 to officially inform the Doornkop Civic of our work, and seek their cooperation,
 including willingness to be interviewed. Some members of the civic were agreeable and
 were helpful in arranging for us to meet other people who had been present during the
 protest However, others were thoroughly suspicious of us, and of me especially. They
 were concerned about possible effects that my research might have on the community.
 Their antagonism was so great that although they could speak English, they initially
 refused to speak to me directly. One person actually said that when whiles put their
 noses into black communities, they caused trouble of one sort or another.
 We found-ourselves in the midst of a fairly complicated power struggle; in which the
 DobsonvtUe Civic Association claimed that the Doomkop Civic was a branch of the
 organisation. We were summoned through one of our informants to report to the
 Dobsonville Civic. Doomkop Civic members whom we spoke to, although suspicious of
 us, argued that they alone needed to be informed. The Doomkop Civic, who were self-
 appointed, refused to accept a subordinate status, and argued that they were
 independent They had played a key role in negotiating the establishment of the
 settlement and continued to liaise with the TPA in allocating sites to new applicants. Our
 approach to participants in the protest had been through members of both Civic bodies.
 It became dear from the beginning that the dynamics of the research process itself
 would need to be carefully monitored for its impact on on-gping relationships. Present
 concerns also mediated the way in which people narrated the past to us.
 Indeed, during the course of our interviews as many narratives of the event as we had
 informants were given to us. Earn offered a somewhat different entry point into an
 understanding of the dynamics of the protest. The differing perspectives yielded a very
 complex set of dynamics at play which any one narrative account fails to provide.
 The most public; and perhaps the most oversimplified of these narratives was that
 offered by the press. The Dobsonville squatter action-can be traced most dearly through
 the columns of The Sowetan during the months of June and July 1990. In June, there
were articles on The whole issue of informal settlement and squatting in South Africa.17
 Accounts of the event and subsequent demolitions were merely descriptive. Interviews
 were limited lo comments from members of the SCA and the local ANC chairperson.
 There was no probing of the whole squatter invasion strategy, which emerged only later
 from our research interviews, particularly from our detailed interviews of the women
 participants.
 Although some journalistic accounts touched on the plight of the homeless, there was
 little clear analysis of the complexity either of the bousing crisis facing South African
 urban government or of the particular plight of women participants. Moreover, there was
 little focus on the perspective of the leading protagonists in the event, the-civic members,
 the Dobsonville Council and its representatives, including the police, nor was there
 attention given to the perspective of the people who actually built the shacks.
 A case study of the negotiating parties in the affair, the Dobsonville civic, the squatters
 and the Council would have offered an insight into a much broader set of relations
 involved in on-going struggles in urban areas for a change in urban government and an
 improvement in urban life. In particular, ihe struggles around the authority of
 Community Councils was uppermost on the agenda of leaders in civic struggles.19 An
 interview with Japhta Lekgetho, who was a member of the SCA and also director of
 NEAQ an environmental centre in DobsonviQe, was particularly interesting in presenting
 a view of the protest as one orchestrated by the Civic, though conducted by OMHLE.
 There is no doubt that Lekgetho was a leading figure in the negotiations around squatter
 struggles in Soweto and elsewhere. It was very difficult to obtain a sustained meeting
 with him in 1991 or in the first quarter of 1992, as he was involved and preoccupied with
 negotiating with the TPA and other authorities about the future of the Zevenfontein
 squatters further to the north. However, we did manage to meet him for more than an
 hour in January 1992. During the course of our discussion, his view of the event was that
 the idea of setting up the shacks between Dobsonville 1 & 2 had been his, and that the
 women were conduits for a broad strategy of land invasion to draw attention to the
 plight of the homeless.1* This view was confirmed by. a member of the Doornkop Civic,
 ' who argued that the strategy was to get the women to take action because it was felt that
 "women are more listened to than men in the "Commissioner's" office'.20 This same
 informant also argued that the protest strategy of throwing their clothes off had utterly
 failed He made no connection between this startling method of protest and the fact
 that most of the participants in the protest action, including the men who had set up
 shacks, were subsequently provided with sites in the adjacent lands released for
 xlThe Sowetan 7 June 1990; 8 June 1990; 7 July 1990; 13 July 1990; 17 July 1990; 18
 July 1990; 26 July 1990.
 18These aspects will not be analysed in this draft, but will form part of a further draft
 of this paper.
 "Notes from an interview by Letabo Malega, Belede Mazwai, and Sheila Meintjes
 with Japhta Lekgetho, NEAC, Dobsonville, 21 January 1992.
 ^Interview by Belede Mazwai and Sheila Meintjes with Benson Banda, Doornkop,
 23 January 1992.
settlement by the IP A-
 Finally, the perspective of the homeless people themselves offers a very different set of
 priorities in relation to the problems and struggles which motivated the strategies and
 actions of people on the ground The overriding conosrn of all the women involved in
 the action was to have a place of their own, where they would have security of tenure,
 and no longer have to face the tenuous and precarious existence as sub-tenants, subject
 to the will of tenant landlords. Without a secure and permanent abode, all the women
 spoke of the difficulties of sustaining jobs and of maintaining their families intact.
 Maria ThUco, whose idea it was to build the shacks on the open veld in Dobsonville, had
 spent years moving from one place to another in Soweto. After years of being in an
 abusive and violent marriage, she obtained a divorce. In the process she lost her home
 and all her belongings. As a single parent with two children to bring up, her life was
 dominated by the needs of her family. Without education, her jobs were always in.
 domestic service and poorly paid. She managed nevertheless to buy a tin shack, which
 was rather like a mobile home. But she was constantly on the look-out for a proper
 home, and had put her name down on the Dobsonville Council housing list from at least
 1979, She haunted the-Council offices whenever there were rumours of houses or hostel
 accommodation being made available. She made sure that the Councillors got to know
 her. She describes how the Mayor constantly made promises to her about houses, telling
 her to come to the offices on week-days, then he would not be available for meetings.
 She would wait for hours at the offices, then arrive late for work. Her employers
 became frustrated with her, accused herof holding down two jobs, and stopped believing
 that she was really looking for a home. After weeks of being late, waiting for hours for
 Councillore' promise* to materialise, Maria Tniko was sacked. Without a job, with
 school-fees to pay and children to feed and clothe, and with only her shack to her name,
 she was in desperate straits. But her resourcefulness in the face of the need to survive
 seemed boundless. She found a job in a Portuguese shop which kept her financially
 afloat.
 She joined the Sofasonke Party in Mshenguvffle, the party which dominated the Council,
 in the hope that this would provide access to shelter. After two meetings, Maria was
 elected an organiser. But when all they offered were places at distant Orange Farm, she
 turned her attention to Dobsonville, where it was rumoured land would be released for
 settlement She explained: "Sofasonke was. launched in Dobsonville - 1 became active
 anticipating that a place to stay would come up soon*. The Councillors again made a
 whole series of .promises about providing basic services on open land. Months went by
 with nothing happening. Considerable amounts of money had been given by homeless
 people to one councillor to secure places. Maria parted with all her savings of R564 for
 the deposit She became suspicious when nothing came of the councillors promises, and
 demanded her money back. She had to wait for a month before the money was returned
 to her, during which time she was made redundant She set off to find a job in
 Roodepoort, and there she met Charlie, a member of OMHLE and the Dobsonville
 civic That same evening, her landlady gave her notice. *I said to myself, if the. civic does
 not take any action I will take my shack - even if I put it in front of the office - because
 in reality now I no longer had a place to stay'. That was how she found herself at
 Tekgeto's place' (NEAC) at the end of June 1990. In her view there was no lon^r an
 alternative to land invasion. Others at the meeting were in similar circumstances. All
 10
were determined thai they had come to rhe end of their life as sub-tenants.
 On Monday we had a meeting and we stressed that we should take our
 shacks io any'opens space. They asked which open space did we want and
 we said "the one between extension two and old DobsonviUe". We asked
 the executive to be at hand because the white language (isikungu) would
 be needed and we did not know it because the country belonged to the
 whites - they had taken it...11
 The shacks went up on the 25th June. On the same day she went to collect her
 belongings, only to return to the area to find 'my shack flying in the air because they
 (the police) were removing them'. She rushed up to her shack, 'I was crying now saying
 "oh, my Lord, when will we ever get a place to stay'. Members of the Civic interceded
 at this point with the Town Council and the Town Clerk, Mr Tony Roux, to halt the
 demolition. Maria Thiko remembered that when they left she was standing on her zinc
 strips, and Mr Roux laughed derisorily at her. 1 said "you laugh because you're better
 off. You have the whole world at your feet. You make a laughing stock of me - who
 does not have any world"'. But she and the other women were determined to create their
 own world This was but the first in a series of three actions.
  tThe women simply rebuilt
 their shacks each time. The final action occurred on the 12th Jury. This was when the
 women stripped off their clothes.
 Of particular relevance in these events is the intersection of gender relations in these
 struggles. Our male informants, all members of the Chic, all claimed that they were the
 driving force behind the action. This does not mean that they did not admire the
 women. When prodded, they aD acknowledged how brave and strong the women had
 been. But it was quite clear that they believed that without them, nothing would nave
 transpired It was they who entered into negotiations with the Councillors, with the
 Town Clerk and with the police. They also all believed that the desperate action of
 stripping naked had not achieved its objective - and the objective in their view was
 limited to chasing the police away. For the women, the objective was much greater than
 this. Their action was a last desperate act where they staked all they possessed on
 getting the authorities to notice them and their homeless plight.
 It became clear in the course of several interviews with participants that they believed
 that it was one of the women, Maria Thiko, who had actually suggested and initiated the
 strategies adopted in this action. Individually, women had heard about the support
 which Lekgetho and the SCA were giving people through Operation Masekane. Often
 this arose from chance encounters with members of the Civic Each person came with
 her own desperate history of hbmelessness, of living tenuously for years in backyard
 slums, subject to the exploitative conditions of landlords. In 1990, conditions were
 conducive to a more organised and strategic campaign around homelessness. Meetings
 of the homeless people were hosted by the Civic, and although Civic members were
 present, it certainly appears from our collective evidence that it was the homeless women
 themselves who decided upon the strategy of invading open land and putting up their
 shacks.
 "Inteniew with Maria Thiko by Belede Mazwai, translated by Nontabeko Lugqola,
 20 January 1992
The narratives presented by the participants themselves were particularly poignant, and
 bring into sharp focus the experience of women under apartheid's urban policies.2
 They also suggest that women establish networks on the basis of circumstantial need,
 which are easily formed, but equally easily demobilised The collective protest action
 brought a group of women who had previously not known one another together. It grew
 out of a shared need for access to land on which to establish their own homes. "Their
 vulnerability as women was expressed in the form of the prot est. Nakedness was one way
 of expressing their anger.3 Although men were involved behind the scenes, offering
 support and their negotiating skills, the women collectively asked the men to keep a low
 profile. In the past, individual efforts to acquire houses by reiving on men had failed.
 For more than a month the women developed a close network as together they devised
 their squatting strategy, faced police harassment and arrest. For three months after the
 event, they continued to harass and demand houses from the council. Interestingly,
 during this period, Maria Thiko joined the ANC. She was looking ahead to those who
 seemed able to provide access to the newly released site and service scheme of
 Daornkop. This is where she and the others who had participated in the protest were
 at last allocated sites.
 When we met the women in 1991/1992, they were settled on their plots. Without
 exception, the women felt they had won their place through their struggles, with the
 support of the Gvic. In Doornkop, their network continued to operate through 1992 as
 they established themselves. But the pressing need for collective action had dissipated,
 and the women retreated into fending for their families. However, at moments when
 issues of collective significance arose, as in the arrest of members of the Gvic when they
 set up an embryonic self-defence unit, it was the women's networks which were activated
 within ah hour to protest the arrest The mobilisation of women appears to be deeply
 embedded in their immediate social networks, and is the key to an understanding of the
 their politicization.
 "We interviewed about a third of the participants in the protest, and are still in the
 process of following people up. All the interviews were conducted in the vernacular, on
 a one to one basis. Although I was present at virtually all of the interviews, they were
 conducted by my research assistants. I followed the discussion with difficulty, but was
 able to interject questions. My main objective was to observe reactions and to note body
 language. Together with translated transcripts these form the basis of the women's
 narratives.
 "I do not develop the argument sufficiently in this draft, but what came up again and
 again in the interviews was the connection between madness and nakedness. The women
 took off their clothes to demonstrate the extent of their desperation, which had driven
 them into madness. Their circumstances had driven them crazy. You resort to madness
 when all else fails.