Women on South African Farms: Empowerment Across or Along Race and Class Divisions?

The article focuses on the role of women farmers in the agricultural development in South Africa. Some of the most important changes in the in the agricultural sector of South Africa includes the introduction of labour legislation to agriculture, changing government structures following political transformation in 1994 and the increasing feminization of the agricultural labour force, particularly on fruit and wine farms in the Western Cape Province. The empowerment of women is essentially a feminist concern. The purpose of this article is to examine the activities of the Cape Women's Forum and the Women on Farms Project aimed at empowering farm women and to interpret the underlying assumptions regarding women's shared interests guiding their divergent approaches from a feminist perspective. In order to demonstrate women's marginalization, the paper begins with an overview of farm women's position on South African fruit farms. The second part of the paper examines the activities and programmes of the two groups directed at the empowerment of farm women. Information on the programmes, activities and strategies of the two women's groups was obtained through a detail analysis of mission statements, published programmes and other written documents of these groups.