The South African Revolution: Protracted or Postponed?

This chapter focuses on the fragmentation of feminist voice in post apartheid South Africa. The chapter argues that while the country has successfully mainstreamed gender and created national gender machineries these failed to sustain a strong feminist voice both within and outside the state.

It focuses on the experience of women within the state structures and shows how over reliance on state feminism has made feminist voice muted and ineffective in the wider society. The chapter also analyses how the different feminist voices (e.g. radical, lesbian, young, urban poor ) were excluded from the mainstreaming processes which led to fragmentation and dissipation of feminist activism in the current decade.