Abstract
This article analyses the dynamics underpinning formal political institutions in relation to women’s participation in Zimbabwe, with a focus on the post November 2017 context. Patriarchal continuities and not changes characterize the post-November period. Under the “new dispensation”, patriarchy, intertwined with the increase in militarized masculinities, is producing exclusion with limited spaces for women’s participation. Simultaneously, Zimbabwean women at times have been destabilizing political spaces, while also being complicit in reproducing patriarchal practices and violence. The military-assisted transition is significant because of the fall of Grace Mugabe and the broader implications of this for women and politics in Zimbabwe.
Introduction
This article provides a grounded analysis of women and politics in post-November 2017 Zimbabwe, that is, after the fall of Robert Mugabe. In doing so, it offers a historical context, in both colonial and post-colonial Zimbabwe, for considering the agency and status of women in politics. Methodologically, the article combines a literature review and a legal review that clearly highlight the continued patriarchal exclusion of women from political spaces across Zimbabwe’s history. While post-2017 events had the potential to reconfigure the gendered norms and practices that impede women’s political participation, they have in fact led to a reinforcing of political masculinities as embodied in a militaristic discourse that is suspicious of female leadership. This disdain for female leadership can be traced back to the well-established patriarchal practices within Zimbabwe’s civil and political formations but, more recently, it arose around the contestations pertaining to the actions and ambitions of former first lady Grace Mugabe. In general, women in Zimbabwe continue to face multiple, complex and intersecting structural barriers that inhibit and undermine their political participation. The current legal framework in Zimbabwe does provide spaces for equal, gender-based, participation especially through the Bill of Rights in the Constitution. Nevertheless, there is a clear disjuncture between law and lived realities especially in the post-November 2017 context where the major political parties and state institutions operate outside the Constitution and seem determined to defend a patriarchal political order (or disorder).
Historicizing women’s political participation in Zimbabwe
Our discussion begins with a focus on women and the first chimurenga. Very limited knowledge is available about the position and role of women in the 1896–1897 risings. Generally, though, women receive negligible mention in the prevailing literature. In reflecting on the first chimurenga literature in the early 1990s, Schmidt (1992) thus notes: “Although the causes, organization, and consequences of the rising have been debated at length, none of the historical accounts has been concerned with gender. What did the rising mean for women? In what ways did they participate? How did the outcome affect them?” (Schmidt, 1992: 36). Even the primary role often given to the female spirit medium (Charwe) of Nehanda is subject to debate. Beach (1998) considers the role of Charwe, during the Mashonaland revolt specifically. According to Beach, the Nehanda medium was supportive of the chimurenga but she was no more significant than any other Mazoe valley leader in the early stages of the revolt and any later role on her part is doubtful. Charumbira (2008) directly responds to (and criticizes) Beach’s interpretation of Charwe’s historical relevance from a feminist perspective. Contrary to Beach, Nehanda-Charwe was “very much involved in the rallying of rebels and in urging people to participate in the rebellions” (Charumbira, 2008: 108).
Decades later, before the second chimurenga, the leadership of the nationalist movements in the 1950s and 1960s was almost exclusively male (Chadya, 2003; Ranger, 1981). Furthermore, nationalism was insensitive to the differential character of varying sets of social struggles, with gender struggles merely subsumed under racial struggles (Raftopoulos, 1999) or not recognized at all. For example, the male-dominated nationalist leadership seemingly deceived women, constructing political ideologies that only tacitly recognized women’s demands in return for their support in the nationalist struggle (Scarnecchia, 1996). As well, rural patriarchs often envisaged nationalism as a means to fortify their masculinity and the social–spatial structures that underlay it (Kesby, 1996). In seeking to evade both African male control and White colonial subjugation, meaningful participation of women in nationalist politics was a difficult and painful process (Barnes, 1999). Overall, the support given by male African nationalists to women’s grievances was superficial (Chadya, 2003). After all, addressing these grievances entailed an implicit challenge to patriarchal orders including the ones which animated nationalist politics.
In this light, Scarnecchia (1996) also notes that, at times, women were constructed discursively as enemies of the struggle or as sell-outs. For instance, a number of single working women were raped by male members of the City Youth League during the Salisbury bus boycott in 1956, ostensibly because these women broke the boycott by travelling on the buses. Nationalist leaders such as Nathan Shamuyarira and Maurice Nyagumbo argued that the rapes were justifiable as revenge for the women’s defiance, and they were a well-deserved punishment (Lyons, 2004). Clearly, male nationalists were blind to the gendered “fragments” of the nation (Chadya, 2003), and they failed to appreciate that women’s experiences of the racial order were mediated by their experiences as women.
Considerable numbers of women joined the war of liberation (or second chimurenga) in the late 1960s and 1970s. On this basis, it appears at first that the image of the subservient and industrious care-giver (as mother and daughter) came to be challenged by the sheer existence of the female combatant (Gaidzanwa, 1992). Other women became active in the politics of liberation as wives of nationalist leaders, meeting and organizing on the side-lines. In the 1970s, the nationalist movement (at least the Zimbabwe African National Union) regularly portrayed women as playing a crucial and sometimes equivalent role in the guerrilla struggle – as guerrillas – during the second chimurenga, though acknowledging that female guerrillas were far fewer in number than male guerrillas (Frederikse, 1982). In the end, the war of liberation – with the deeply militarized dimension to it – was profoundly patriarchal in both discourse and practice in depicting men as agents of heroic political change.
What appears in some of the academic literature, at least implicitly, is a militarized masculinity of war as the quintessential form of hegemonic masculinity both honoured and desired (Parpart, 2015), and into which deserving women may gain entry and thereby qualify as heroes too. In this context, Nhongo-Simbanegavi (2000) examines the motivations for females in joining the guerrilla armies (mainly the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army) and their experiences in base camps outside the country and in the operational areas inside. She concludes that “[a]s young women joined the armed struggle they passed over to the patronage of a new set of patriarchs, the nationalist leaders” (Nhongo-Simbanegavi, 2000: 17) and “[a]s in the camps, women [guerrillas] in the operational zone remained in spaces carved out by men” (Nhongo-Simbanegavi, 2000: 83). Female guerrillas in the operational zones often performed stereotypically-defined womanly roles, such as carrying weapons and ammunition for male guerrillas, or cooking and doing laundry for them (Parpart, 2015).
Women were not mere victims of the war of liberation, but were active participants in it. Though they sought in many ways to reposition themselves and use social spaces opened up by the war to their advantage, this did not necessarily involve any meaningful undermining of systems and practices of patriarchy, certainly if the marginalized character of women’s political participation in independent Zimbabwe is taken into consideration.
Zimbabwean women and politics from 1980 to 2000
Theorizing women and the post-colonial state in Zimbabwe is quite challenging. Since independence, the state has vacillated between different gender-based strategies and policies, mostly at its own convenience. In the early years of independence, there was some semblance of liberal pragmatism with the state creating the Ministry of Women Affairs (headed by a woman) to articulate women’s socio-economic and political questions. Legislative reforms were enacted, with the Legal Age of Majority Act giving women full adult status at the age of 18 as well as the political franchise. In 1985, the Matrimonial Causes Act was passed to address gender injustices in access to property. The country ratified the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women in 1991 as well as the Convention on the Political Rights of Women, and it adopted both the Dakar Platform for Action and the Beijing Declaration with regard to women’s rights. By the turn of the century, the government – at least officially – seemed to be taking a progressive stance.
However, as time went by, any urge to meaningfully address gender inequality in Zimbabwe – even at official levels – diminished rapidly, overridden by the ongoing long-term desire to regulate and control women both in the private and public spheres through powerful invocations of counter-revolutionary nationalist and cultural discourses (Essof, 2013). Chipo Hungwe’s work on Zimbabwean women in post-colonial politics is clear on this. After the war in the 1970s, women were expected to go back to their nurturing roles (Hungwe, 2006). Those women who worked outside the home were expected to take low-income jobs that were demarcated as “respectable”– in secretarial, teaching and nursing; and those who defied these boundaries were targeted as “unrespectable” (Hungwe, 2006). Likewise, Gaidzanwa (1995) shows how the term “prostitute” in Zimbabwe was mobilized against women in the political arena in order to delegitimize women’s initiatives to democratize private and public life. Hence, women such as Shuvai Mahofa and Margaret Dongo were branded as prostitutes.
The patriarchal conception of women as mothers (to reproduce the nation) was further confirmed by the absence of women politicians in the negotiations around the 1987 Unity Accord (Vambe, 1995). As well, although more than 50% of the votes which enabled the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU–PF) to form the new government in 1980 came from women, this was not reflected in their representation in parliament. The few women in parliament were political appointees meant to window-dress the masculine House of Assembly. The presence of women political appointees such as Joice Mujuru in the Cabinet has been the subject of contention. For some feminists such as Grace Kwinjeh and Everjoice Win, Mujuru represented mere patriarchal interests and promoted femocracy. Contrary to her counterparts (Dongo and Mahofa), Mujuru was accorded some sort of respectability (based on her marriage to the late General Solomon Mujuru), so her presence in male-dominated political spaces should also be conceived in terms of her privileged identity.
At the same time, women’s post-war political activism started to take shape in the 1980s with many women organizing in opposition to the state. Political activism emerged, for instance, in response to Clean up Operations and repeated attempts to repeal the Legal Age of Majority Act as well as protests against the public stripping of “improperly” dressed women. This led to the establishment of robust women’s groups such as the Women’s Action Group, Women and Law in Southern Africa, Zimbabwe Women’s Resource Center and Network, Musasa Project and Zimbabwe Women Lawyers Association in the 1980s and early 1990s. Women political activists invoked international instruments and channelled their energy into both claiming and protecting women’s rights with regard to full political and economic participation. During the same period, transnational feminist movements and the work of the United Nations (UN) influenced several women organizations in the country to support women’s political and economic participation. In this regard, several women leaders engaged with radical political perspectives, for example during the 1985 UN Women’s Conference in Nairobi and the 1995 Beijing Conference.
However, as Zimbabwe plunged into socio-economic and political upheaval in the latter part of the 1990s, conditions for civic–political participation became increasingly challenging. By then, the state’s open hostility to opposition formations meant that activists (including female activists) were targets of state-sponsored violence. Nevertheless, the burgeoning civic movement in the late 1990s opened up some space for organizing and activism by female political activists, with this movement leading to the rise of the opposition party, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). A prominent civic demand during this time was a new Constitution. But, spaces for the pursuit of a new Constitution were male-dominated. A counter response was the formation of the Women’s Coalition in 1999, which subsequently culminated in the drafting of the Zimbabwe Women’s Charter (a series of demands to ensure full female citizenship and participation). Alongside the MDC, the Coalition campaigned for a “no vote” in contributing to the rejection of the draft Constitution put to a referendum by the state in February 2000. This political role by the Coalition has not been sufficiently recognized in the literature on Zimbabwean politics at the turn of the century.
The violence and repression that followed the rejection of the referendum negatively reconfigured the political space, including for women. The influence of women’s voices became less visible after the 2000 referendum, as the women’s movement changed direction and tone because intimidation, violence and state reprisals increased (Research and Advocacy Unit, 2016). Activists such as Bev Clark, Amanda Atwood, Janah Ncube, Nokuthula Moyo, Catherine Makoni, Tsitsi Matekaire, Thoko Matshe, Maggie Makanza, Petina Gappah, Gugulethu Moyo, Everjoice Win, Beatrice Mtetwa, Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga and Grace Kwinjeh in one way or the other faced ridicule, physical violence by state apparatuses, body shaming and taunts about their private lives (Magaisa, 2008). In the main, women’s civic and political participation became more subdued and precarious.
Women in Zimbabwean politics, 2000–2013
After 2000, the Zimbabwean state seemed to continue propagating the rights of women, at least formally. This is expressed in the National Gender Policy of 2004, and the ratification of the Maputo Protocol in 2008 on gender equality.
However, in the period between 2000 and 2013, women continued to lag behind in terms of political representation. From 2000 to 2005, women’s representation in the House of Assembly increased only marginally from 9.3% to 16% (Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe, 2018). Zimbabwe’s March 2008 harmonized elections represented a further setback for greater women’s representation. Although the proportion of female candidates contesting the elections rose significantly, the proportion of elected female candidates was still significantly lower compared to all other Southern African countries (Women and Law in Southern Africa, 2009). Because of the serious contestations around the 2008 elections, this gave rise to a political settlement in the form of the Government of National Unity (GNU). In the GNU, Nomalanga Khumalo became deputy speaker of Parliament and Edna Madzongwe was president of the Senate.
The GNU, involving both ZANU–PF and two MDC parties, was able to bring about a progressive constitution. In pursuing gender equality, the new Constitution adopted the following:
(a) Section 104(4): Gender balance in appointing ministers and deputies;
(b) Section 120(2)(b): Equal numbers of male and female Senators based on a party list system of proportional representation;
(c) Section 124(1)(b): Additional sixty female members of parliament elected through proportional representation for two parliaments (this has been renewed for the 2023 election);
(d) Section 17: Promotion of gender balance and equality of men and women in all spheres including politics. The state should amend legislation to ensure gender equality in all institutions and agencies of government including equal representation of men and women on Commissions; and
(e) Section 67: Provides full political rights for all including the right to vote, to form or join political parties and the right to be elected or hold office.
The 2013 Constitution provides the basis for a new legal architecture for women’s participation in politics. However, the domestic legal framework is full of contradictions, combining both common and customary laws. On the one hand, in the constitution, political participation is recognized as a human right and is premised on gender equality. On the other hand, when it comes to women participating in local political governance structures, customary laws and traditions often create barriers to the fulfillment of constitutional provisions.
Women’s participation as both voters and political candidates is also entangled in unreformed electoral politics. The electoral framework is problematic mainly because the electoral environment is patriarchal and militaristic. While it is encouraging that every Zimbabwean has a diversity of political rights in terms of the gender provisions of the Electoral Amendment Act of 2018, there are a number of troublesome aspects. For example, the minimum age requirement of 40 years excludes young women from contesting as candidates for the presidency and Senate. In the local government sphere, the requirement for nomination that the candidate should not be in debt to Council is difficult for women in particular, as they may owe money because of a myriad of factors.
The 2013 Constitution though was a watershed in Zimbabwean politics, as it created a legal discourse on equal political participation. Following its adoption, the proportion of women in the national assembly increased from 14% to 32% and in the Senate from 33% to 48%, resulting in an overall representation of 34% women. This arose because the Constitution provides for a quota of 60 women selected through proportional representation of parties in the House of Assembly. However, the quota has had a negative impact on women in elected positions. Political parties began to increasingly relegate women to the quota. The women elected through the quota do not have a constituency and face problems if they want to engage with communities, as elected parliamentarians see them as a threat. Because of this, these women are called “BACOSSI 1 MPs” (“cheap or of no value”). Zungura and Nyembe (2013) add that the quota system would only succeed when women also obtain access to political resources that are required to transform the patriarchal norms working against women in politics. As well, the quota system is exclusionary to young women mainly because it caters for older women already established in political parties (Hamandishe, 2018). Overall, it appears that the current quota is a mechanism for appeasing the women’s movement. The mere fact that a quota outside of the 210 constituencies was created is testament to the art of “politricking”, gamesmanship and lip-service played by the dominant (male) power brokers in Zimbabwe’s political parties.
Outright physical and symbolic violence against aspiring female politicians also exists in Zimbabwe, including within party structures where women are competing for nomination with male counterparts. Local political spaces are sites of violence due to the corrupt practice of imposing candidates by party “big wigs” (Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe, 2018), and women are often threatened and excluded for preferred male candidates. Thus, even prior to the military takeover and its outright militarization of politics, electoral and other political processes were marked by increasing conflict, repression and violence (van Eerdewijk and Mugadza, 2015), with women being the most significant victims of this masculinization of violence. This was linked to the misogynistic practices intrinsic to Zimbabwean politics, which Joice Mujuru first experienced and, later, both Thokozani Kupe and Grace Mugabe experienced.
Coup de Grace: Women’s roles in the events of November 2017
The rise (and then fall) of Grace Mugabe is fundamental in the wider analysis of historical and contemporary political participation of women in Zimbabwe. Thus, locating women in the events of the November 2017 events is important. This requires a nuanced analysis of how the episode itself was in some ways a reaction to a feminine threat to patriarchal structures, as Grace Mugabe emerged as a viable replacement to the then-president of the country (Robert Mugabe). Ward (2017) argues that Grace Mugabe started to rebrand herself as a serious political contender, making moves to succeed her husband through first trying to change the ZANU–PF constitution to include one female vice president.
Already, Grace Mugabe had taken over as leader of the ZANU–PF Women’s League after the ouster of Joice Mujuru in December 2014. Factional wars plaguing ZANU–PF came to a head leading to the expulsion of senior political figures including Mujuru (Chiweshe, 2017). In the lead up to this, Mujuru – a veteran of the liberation struggle and the first female vice president in Zimbabwe – suffered multiple public attacks from Grace Mugabe and her husband. The attacks by the Mugabes and their allies contained specific derogatory dog messages and whistles laced with misogynistic statements about Mujuru’s body and sex life (Muperi, 2014). These attacks mirrored the often-used attacks against Zimbabwean women in powerful positions.
The problem of lack of female solidarity, as expressed in the tangle between Joice Mujuru and Grace Mugabe, is persistent in all places and spaces. Essentially, patriarchy is persistently toxic, divisive and polarizing. Therefore, the attack on Joice Mujuru by Grace Mugabe reinforces the absence of solidarity among women. Everjoice Win (2004) suggested that the identity of being a woman was not enough for women to support each other. This is mainly because, beyond gender, women are also differentiated by social fault-lines such as class, education levels, geographical location and sexual orientation among other factors. In this context, Oyewumi (2003) and others speak about “sisterarchy”, as denoting and highlighting the hierarchies that exist among women.
As leader of the ZANU–PF’s Women’s League, Mrs Mugabe began to build a coalition with the youth wing of the party to create a credible takeover of the presidency. After the ouster of Mujuru, the political contestations in ZANU–PF now pitted Grace Mugabe (and her allies known as Generation 40 or G40) against Emmerson Mnangagwa (and his allies known as Lacoste), who had replaced Joice Mujuru as vice president. In her contest with Mnangagwa, Grace utilized a tactic of public outbursts and attacks on her rivals, as she had done against Mujuru. For example, at a rally in Chinhoyi in July 2017, she accused Mnangagwa of harbouring presidential ambitions and leading a faction working against her husband (Mushava and Ncube, 2017). The attacks on Mnangagwa by Grace Mugabe culminated in her expulsion from ZANU–PF subsequent to Mnangagwa’s rise to power via the military-assisted resignation of Robert Mugabe (Machivenyika, 2017).
While Grace Mugabe led a faction, whose main protagonists were male (such as Jonathan Moyo and Savior Kasukuwere), she was a – if not the – driving force. For the patriarchal gerontocrats and military elements within ZANU–PF, this was an existential threat. Her rise and downfall is instructive regarding a wider intersectional analysis of political participation of women in Zimbabwe. Reading between the lines of the attacks on Grace Mugabe, it is clear they are based mainly on her failure to satisfy her womanly gender roles of supporting her husband, and reproducing and nurturing her children and the nation.
This should be understood in a historical context as well. Looking at the war of liberation, Nhongo-Simbanegavi (2000) points out that the wartime slogan for women was “Forward with the cooking stick”, which continued to enshrine the nurturing, maternal roles and domestic care work of women. According to tradition, then, Grace Mugabe belonged to the domestic space, just like any other narrowly defined, respectable Zimbabwean woman. In feminist terms, then, contemporary women such as Grace Mugabe who trespassed into the political arena are seen as “fallen women”, contaminating the natural order of patriarchy. Writing for the Mail and Guardian in 2017, Mawere (2017) argues that:
In this view, since she has polluted Mugabe, both have to be eliminated from the political body to avoid further contamination. The point is that Grace has failed in being ‘mother of the nation.’ This is symbolically reflected by her wayward sons, her lack of respect and dignity as reflected by her public cursing of people, her failure to unite the Zimbabwean ‘family’ but instead trigger divisions.
Ambition and abrasiveness are celebrated characteristics of male politicians but, for women such as Grace Mugabe, her presence led to the marujatanization of women in politics. Marujata is a derogatory Shona name used to describe loose, pompous and loud-mouthed women (although it is applied to many women who are simply confident and outspoken) (Mawere, 2017). Her downfall is thus a reminder for all other women to stick to their gender roles of nurturing and not to usurp the roles of men.
As shown in the cases of Joice Mujuru and Grace Mugabe, derogatory language has often been used as a strategy to keep women out of Zimbabwean politics. The term “hure” has been used over time for the surveillance of women and to exclude them from public spaces (Chiweshe, 2015). Hure, loosely translated, means whore or woman of loose morals. The Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe (2018: 14) shows that “women [are] called hure if they became politicians or aspired to become so. . . [These] women would have penetrated male spaces, thereby challenging patriarchy”. This term, deployed by patriarchs in both ZANU–PF and opposition parties, seeks to discipline female politicians who are seen to be challenging the status quo. In 2019, Joseph Chinotimba, a ZANU–PF parliamentarian, called opposition parliamentarian Thabitha Khumalo a prostitute (hure) (see: https://www.thezimbabwemail.com/main/mayhem-in-parliament-as-chinotimba-labels-tabitha-khumalo-prostitute/).
This system of slut shaming has faced some resistance with women such as Misihairambwi-Mushonga (an opposition politician) when, wearing a T-shirt printed with the word hure, she formally registered Thokozani Khupe’s candidacy for president in 2018 (see: https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/zim-election-female-candidates-face-scathing-abuse-20180727). The appropriation of the notion of hure, in this case, was criticized by various sections of Zimbabwean society. However, in terms of women’s political activism, it is a long-established strategy of defiance or rebellion against patriarchal control.
Beyond Grace Mugabe, women were largely at the periphery of the events in November 2017. But the question of femininity and womanhood was central as an immediate trigger to the “military-assisted transition” in Zimbabwe. If anything, the process was patriarchy’s (state and military) response to the direct threat of a female presidency. The major architects and beneficiaries of the political transition, Emmerson Mnangagwa and General Constantine Chiwenga, became defenders of patriarchal politics (Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe 2018). The masculine projection of power by the military in particular is seen in how Major General Sibusiso Moyo announced the “military-assisted transition” on television flanked by male counterparts. Nowhere within the unfolding military takeover were women present, except for a few speeches by the likes of Oppah Muchinguri (who was later nominated to the post of Minister of Defence in the Mnangagwa government). The minimal official details around the planning of the military-assisted transition, including secret meetings of the military, either show that women were largely outside or at the periphery of the transition processes or their roles have been downplayed as in previous political processes (such as the war of liberation). Subsequent to the transition, a macho-militarism within the national politics of ZANU–PF has come to the fore increasingly.
Women in the politics of the new dispensation post-November 2017
When Mnangagwa took over the presidency of Zimbabwe there was significant hope for change across most sectors of state and society, though many remained sceptical of the ability of ZANU–PF to reinvent itself. This is particularly true when it comes to women in politics. The reconfigured masculinities in the “new” ZANU–PF made it impossible for increased participation of women in politics. This is despite the 2013 Constitution calling for gender parity in politics and society more broadly. What made the situation particularly problematic and alienating for women was the need for Mnangagwa to appease the military, male ZANU–PF stalwarts and war veterans – with the latter playing a pivotal role in the events of November 2017. The top brass of the army, who orchestrated the demise of Robert Mugabe, came to dominate the new cabinet with General Chiwenga elevated to the vice presidency. The transitional government (prior to fresh national elections in 2018) continued the pattern of female underrepresentation especially in key ministerial posts such as finance, agriculture and industry. The new cabinet had five women out of 30 ministers, and none were deputy ministers. Constitutionalism was disregarded and hence gender inequalities in the political sphere survived the fall of Robert Mugabe.
Women and the 2018 elections: Experiences and outcomes
The results of the July 2018 elections provide ample evidence of the regression of female participation and success in Zimbabwe’s electoral politics. The 2013 Constitution provides a legal basis to ensure equitable participation of men and women in politics. Hence, it was imperative for all political parties to ensure that – in drawing candidate lists for the 2018 elections – respect for this constitutional principle prevailed. In reality, however, the nomination processes ignored gender parity as the major political parties continued to operate outside the constitution. Commenting on the nomination lists before the election, Sakhile Sifelani-Ngoma of the Women in Politics Support Unit highlighted that:
In the National Assembly, 47 political parties fielded candidates, and 20 of these did not field women candidates and two parties fielded only one woman each. A total of 84 out of 210 constituencies will be contested by men only, adding that in local authority elections, 40 political parties fielded candidates, 12 of which fielded men only. Of the local authority candidates, 17% are women and 83% are men out of 6 796 candidates. We are deeply concerned that at this point it appears that the only women that will be in Parliament are the 91 that are required by law (cited in Langa, 2018).
The nomination lists were already pointing towards a deflated number of women in elected positions post the polls. Building on the concept of intersectional continuities, this state of affairs follows a well-established mode of male dominance of electoral processes in Zimbabwe. Women in general largely find it difficult to launch political campaigns, and intersectional factors such as lack of female solidarity, class, political financing, violence, age and disability continue to influence women’s political misfortunes in the post-Mugabe era.
Again, one of the major reasons why political parties did not promote female candidates was the 2013 constitutional provision that provided for 60 women in parliament to be elected through a system of proportional representation, based on the votes cast for political party candidates in the lower house (National Assembly) (UNWomen, 2013). As in the 2013 elections, this has been detrimental to the cause of women in politics post the “military-assisted transition”. A study by Women’s Coalition Zimbabwe (2018) shows how these quota-based female parliamentarians are viewed lowly by ordinary women as tokenistic without any impact or authority. The quota system was supposed to last for two parliaments but in early 2020 there were signs that the government would extend the provisions into the future. This is despite the continued critique of the effectiveness of this system, with women calling for the quota to be included among the actual 210 elected seats (Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe, 2018).
The results of the 2018 elections indicate that, of the 210 parliamentary seats, only 26 went to women (Batamaucho, 2018). The overall percentage was 31%, only because of the quota system. There are multiple reasons for this ongoing gender challenge. Politically, Mnangagwa’s mantra of a “new dispensation” is in many ways a call to return to a state where women are confined to feminine spaces. After Grace Mugabe, women needed to be reminded of their place and their ambitions (especially for the presidency) needed to be curtailed. The fact that the vast majority of Zimbabweans (both male and female) have low opinions of female politicians adds to their woes.
In analysing the voting patterns in 2018, the Research and Advocacy Unit (2018) concluded that the majority of female voters voted for male candidates. Bearing in mind that 54% of registered voters were women, a mere 11% of voters cast their vote for a female candidate, which means that women themselves preferred male candidates – although it must be factored in that there were few female candidates (Research and Advocacy Unit, 2018). However, four female candidates ran in the presidential race (Joice Mujuru of the People’s Rainbow Coalition, Thokozani Khupe of Movement for Democratic Change – Tsvangirai, Violet Mariyacha of the United Democratic Movement and Melba Dzapasi of #1980 Freedom Movement Zimbabwe). Twice as many Zimbabwean men as women think that women are unsuitable for political office, suggesting that patriarchy is not trivial (Research and Advocacy Unit, 2018).
While gender alone is not the basis for supporting a candidate, the Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe (2018) shows that women are not likely to vote for female candidates. Female politicians suffer from a “pull her down” syndrome in which women tend to tear each other down and are more likely to support male candidates (Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe, 2018). Pulling each other down is a factor facilitated by the patriarchal structure of Zimbabwean society and the ongoing influence of traditionally-minded women to maintain “traditional” culture (Research and Advocacy Unit and Institute for Young Women’s Development, 2018). This lack of female solidarity is explained by Amina Mama (1995) by way of the notion that also talks of “femocracy” – where women in leadership fail to challenge patriarchal practices as they create a clique that focuses on its own interests rather than those of marginalized women. Hence, those outside key political spaces may not see the benefits of supporting a female politician.
After the 2018 election, another opportunity emerged for the new government to improve women’s representation in the cabinet. President Emmerson Mnangagwa had previously indicated his willingness to increase the participation of women and youth in the cabinet. The new cabinet, however, had only six female ministers (a modest improvement from five), with women taking control for the first time of the Ministry of Defence, Security and War Veterans (Oppah Muchinguri) and Ministry of Youth, Sports, Arts and Recreation (Kirsty Coventry). The overall picture, in terms of cabinet and other senior positions, provides continuities with past male domination in Mugabe’s cabinets. This is despite the 2013 Constitution in Section 104(4) stating that: “In appointing Ministers and Deputy Ministers, the President must be guided by considerations of regional and gender balance.” The patriarchal domination of key political appointments is in direct contradiction with the constitution.
As well, young women face unique challenges due to the continued masculine character of politics in Zimbabwe. Practices of gerontocracy, patriarchy, and patronage by seniors at both community and national level constrain young people from participation (Youth Empowerment and Transformation Trust, 2017). Older women seem to be undertaking minimal efforts to encourage young women’s political participation (Research and Advocacy Unit and Institute for Young Women’s Development, 2018). This intergenerational chasm creates serious problems especially in political party structures where young women are excluded by both older men and women from key positions. In addition, the youth wings of major political parties in Zimbabwe have always been led and dominated by men to the detriment of young women’s ambitions for power.
Misogyny is an old strategy that has always generated the patriarchal dividend (Connell, 2009) for men in Zimbabwe. For instance, young unmarried women such as independent political candidates Fadzayi Mahere and Linda Masarira experienced sexist critiques (largely from men) about their eligibility to be politicians, given their lack of husbands (Hamandishe, 2018). Another study by Transparency International in Zimbabwe (2019) shows that young women with disabilities face further challenges of exclusion and discrimination from leadership spaces. Disabled female youths are not included in political processes and are rarely elected at the community level to political leadership positions. Depending on the nature of the disability, female youths find it difficult to access information and be able to attend various meetings (Transparency International in Zimbabwe, 2019).
At local government levels, women are generally underrepresented, constituting only 13.3% of elected councilors in 2018. This is problematic given that, by 2013, women formed over 65% of the primary users of local authority services. Women in both rural and urban areas rarely participate in local or district politics for various reasons, including lack of finance, traditional roles, absence of support from spouses and families, lack of education, fear and threats of violence. Within rural district councils, there are very few elected women and this translates to male domination of local committees. As a result, women’s strategic needs and interests are not properly represented in key decision-making institutions at local government levels. This leads to service delivery programmes which fail to consider important gender differences within communities.
Redefining the role of the first lady post-Grace Mugabe
The post-Grace Mugabe period has been punctuated by deliberate efforts to minimize the influence and participation of women and in particular wives of prominent politicians in politics. This has been done through a deliberate and orchestrated domestication of the first lady role. The rebranding of the first lady position places the new first lady Auxillia Mnangagwa outside the political space. The structural location of the first lady is thus where domestic gender roles are reproduced in public spaces (Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe, 2018). The focus by the first lady on orphans and other social issues, aspects which resonate with women’s domestic and caring roles, arose to juxtapose with the actions of the “errant” Grace Mugabe who had forgotten her place and role within the Zimbabwe body politic. Auxillia Mnangagwa, a politician in her own right and also an elected Member of Parliament, was forced to resign from politics and sorely focus on philanthropic work.
Mananavire (2019) quotes a speech given by President Mnangagwa in late 2018 at a charity event where he defined the parameters of the revised first lady’s role. He argued:
Just a few months ago, we had interfaces (rallies), where both the (former) first lady and the President were talking. We do not want that to be repeated. Let it be a platform which is mine and my vice-presidents only and not for the ladies. It is wrong.
In the same report the first lady is also quoted as agreeing with this sentiment, noting:
I am different from her (Grace). I do not do what she used to do. I am focusing on humanitarian work, I am focusing on health issues and I am the ambassador of health. It is unfortunate to compare me with Grace, she never used to do what I am doing. I am spending my time in the rural areas talking about health issues.
These two quotes point towards not only a redefinition but also a containment of the role of the first lady within politics, in order to combat the influence and power that women can exert as both wives and political candidates. Indeed, the current first lady has spent considerable time on domestic and socially oriented activities including teaching children about Zimbabwean cultures.
Women in opposition politics
While this article is largely concerned with developments within ZANU–PF, it is imperative that we also analyse the state of women in opposition politics post the military-assisted transition. There is need to outline how patriarchal structures seem to be rooted within the major opposition political party, the MDC Alliance. The factional politics that followed the death of MDC founder president Morgan Tsvangirai in 2018 led to the rise of Nelson Chamisa as president of the party. Chamisa outmanoeuvred two, older vice presidents of the party (Thokozani Khupe and Elias Mudzuri) who wanted the party to go to congress and choose a successor (Kwaramba, 2018). A day after Tsvangirai’s death, Chamisa convened a national council meeting where he was chosen as the acting president of the party. Thokozani Khupe, the only vice president of the three who had been elected to her position (before Tsvangirai’s death), was discarded and excluded from this process. Khupe would go on to suffer serious political violence at the funeral of Tsvangirai where she was nearly set on fire (Dube, 2018). Attacks on her by youths and members aligned to Chamisa began to mirror other attacks on women who dared to challenge the male domination of public space (Chronicle, 2018). There are many other examples in the history of the MDC of women who were marginalized, and physically and emotionally harassed for challenging the patriarchal domination of the party, such as Lucia Matibenga, Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga and Trudy Stevenson (Runyanga, 2018).
Women in political and economic institutions
Finally, an analysis of women in political spaces post-Robert Mugabe also requires a focus on how misogyny has continued in various other leadership spheres. The “new dispensation” has not led to any substantial transformation of women’s experiences of power in public and private positions of leadership. In various spaces of power, patriarchal tendencies provide continuities with the past regime with women in powerful positions facing personal, sexist and misogynistic attacks. One example is the accusations of a sexual affair between chairperson of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, Judge Priscilla Chigumba, and Winston Chitando, a ZANU–PF minister. This public discussion of a woman’s private life should provide a moment of pause to analyse the attacks as sexist and steeped in the matrix of patriarchal domination that are constantly used to limit the number of women in public spaces and offices (Tshili, 2018). The attacks on Chigumba deteriorated to an examination of her personal appearance, with Zimbabweans on Twitter taking on the #ChigumbaChallenge to mock how she looked on national television (Simba, 2018). Attacking a women’s appearance is an entrenched misogynistic method of maligning women in the public sphere.
Beyond the political space, women continue to be underrepresented within the economic sphere. For instance, the boards of Zimbabwe Stock Exchange listed companies have 403 directors and only 72 (18%) are women (Nyahasha, 2018). This has a direct link to women’s abilities to finance their political participation. Electioneering requires significant resources, especially at party primary level where candidates have to self-fund their campaigns. Due to entrenched corruption in Zimbabwe’s political system, access to ill-gained resources (in old-boys’ clubs) can ensure successful outcomes as vote buying is rampant. As Zungura and Nyemba (2013: 205) note, “the aspiring Member of Parliament gives to the voters beer or monies for projects”. Certainly, candidates who are able to fund food, allowances and T-shirts tend to fare better in elections. In this way, the differentiated gendered access to the upper echelons of the economy and capital continue to work against women in pursuing political and careers.
Conclusion
This article has traced the continued marginalization of women from the political arena in post-colonial Zimbabwe, including under the current president Mnangagwa. In fact, entrenched patriarchal practices have become reinvigorated within state and politics under the “new dispensation” as a way to address the near rise of a woman to the presidency. While the military-assisted transition was in large part a response by the military establishment to protect their interests, Grace Mugabe’s gender also posed a serious threat to the masculine character of the state.
In this regard, the notion of a post-Mugabe era – as the fall of Robert Mugabe – needs to be questioned. Rather, this should be understood as the fall of Grace Mugabe, particularly if we are to fully understand the political experiences of women after the events of November 2017. Therefore, from an intersectionality gendered perspective, the most crucial dimension of the military-assisted transition is the implications of the increasing militarization of politics for women. The ruling masculinities seem determined in defending a patriarchal political order. Where spaces have been opened, it seems that this has been done for convenience under a conservative patriarchal agenda and not under constitutionalism. This is as true for the main opposition party as it is for ZANU–PF.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
