ABSTRACT
The life experiences of the majority of Black women in South Africa starkly show that, for them, oppression rests on the intersection of race and class with gender. In rural areas, the poorest areas of the country, the majority of African households are headed by women. Attempts by South African women to inform the post-Apartheid constitution-making process began even before the negotiation process took off in earnest. In 1990, for example, a series of workshops was held on the Charter for Women's Rights and ways in which it could be built into a post-Apartheid constitution. A determined conservative lobby called for the constitutionalization of women's subordination. The activism of rural women—who contend not only with Apartheid but also with customary law in its harshest form—brought into question the future of customary law in a post-Apartheid state founded on a democratic and nonsexist constitution.
