ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses citizenship in the context of South Africa as a process of inclusion into a liberal rights framework. The major tool of inclusion was the liberal feminist mechanism of law reform and the creation of a National Gender Machinery in the state to institutionalize gender equality. By introducing the very progressive liberal democratic constitution South Africa accepted universal human rights as the framework in which law will operate but also committed the judiciary to giving the constitution priority over customary and indigenous law in cases where conflicts arose. In South Africa more women are infected with HIV and more women die of Aids than men. Socioeconomic rights are viewed as less universal than first-generation rights because they are fiscally restricted and require distributional decisions and contextual and conditional opportunities, which are limited in developing societies. Processes of economic restructuring have a transnational dimension that women need to engage.