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Women in Zimbabwean Politics Post-November 2017

Sandra Bhatasara https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3094-1907 [email protected] and Manase Kudzai ChiwesheView all authors and affiliations
Volume 56, Issue 2
https://doi.org/10.1177/0021909620986576

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.

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Biographies

Sandra Bhatasara is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, University of Zimbabwe and Research Associate in the Department of Sociology, Rhodes University, South Africa. Her research focuses on intersectional studies of gender, social exclusion, land and agrarian issues, environment and social dimensions of climate change in Zimbabwe, and Southern Africa. She co-edited, along with Kirk Helliker and Manase Kudzai Chiweshe, The Political Economy of Livelihoods in Contemporary Zimbabwe, published by Routledge in 2018.
Manase Kudzai Chiweshe is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, University of Zimbabwe and Research Associate in the Department of Sociology, Rhodes University, South Africa. He is the winner of the 2015 Gerti Hessling Prize for the best paper in African studies. His work revolves around the sociology of everyday life in African spaces with special focus on promoting African ways of knowing with specific reference to agrarian studies, livelihoods, gender and football studies.
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