Agenda values participatory and transparent processes and provides opportunities for individual growth and development. We host quarterly feminist dialogues in Durban, Cape Town and Pretoria. Visit  this page to see upcoming events near you.

Gender and the economy in post-apartheid South Africa

The focus of this issue of Agenda on changes and challenges within post-apartheid South Africa in relation to gender and the economy is most timely considering it is twenty-five years since political transformation. It draws our attention to two fields of intellectual engagement, namely Economics and Gender Studies, although for neither field is this an unusual convergence.

Economic research incorporates gender as a dimension into data collection and analysis; surveys and other investigative methods quickly establish whether respondents are male, female and sometimes ‘other’. Although such research produces significant findings along gender lines, this equates neither to a fundamental concern with the inequalities perpetrated by the systems of patriarchy nor capitalism. To the contrary, it is possible to attribute differences in findings along gender lines to essentialist notions of gender differences.