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Shireen Hassim. 2014. The ANC Women's League. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press. 159 pp.
Hassim's book is not only about the history of the ANC Women's League (ANCWL) but the process of articulation of gender equality as a determining factor of South African society and politics as well. Both interviews and archival work helped the author give a narrative introduction about the ANCWL from its very first steps until the present day. The book is structured into ten chapters, which follow a chronological order. Beside the author's viewpoint, the attitude famous of political leaders, organization members, and scientists towards women's emancipation draw our attention in the introduction both in narrative and analytic ways.
The introductory chapter and the chapter, "Beginnings," talk about the formation of the ANCWL along with addressing the relationship between South African women and the country's political life in the first half of the 20th century. The fact that women only got the right to become full members of the ANC more than thirty years after its establishment shows the party's patriarchal attitude. "The women members of the ANC comprised the wives of men who were members of the movements" (p. 23), writes Hassim. 'The idea of a non-racial national women's...