Conclusion

The preceding chapters are unified in that they each deal with a society or region undergoing transition. With the exception of Northern Ireland, the future of which is still in doubt, each of these societies has undergone a regime change in the recent past. Consequently, the changes they have experienced have been profound and include significant alterations in the position of women. While the contexts vary widely, the various contributors have been united in their consideration of the links between women’s status and the alterations in the social structures of their respective societies. The linkages are in no respect uni-dimensional: as well as being affected by social change, women have been effectors of change. Meintjes’ account of the roles women have played over the decades of the struggle in South Africa is perhaps the clearest example. Transition, often equated with democratization (Fukayama 1992), is employed here in broader terms. It refers to profound changes in socio-economic and political structuresrather than the more limited orbit of democratization or transition to a society in which competitive elections are a reality. Democratization, including a broadening of access to political power for groups to whom access was previously denied (in this case, women), is an important, but not the only, aspect of transition. As the contributors demonstrate, in common with the bulk of the literature about the effect of democratization upon women, the extension of franchise rights does not in itself automatically lead to an improvement in women’s position: indeed, it may have the contrary effect. Waylen (1994:329) makes the broad point:

Institutional democratization does not necessarily entail a democratization of power relations in society at large, particularly between men and women and… there is no necessary connection between playing an important part in any stage of the process of democratization and having any particular role during the period of consolidation.