A portrait of the South African woman manager

Women who are currently in responsible management positions provide role models and valuable feedback for the future management development of womanpower in South Africa. This article, based on replies received in a national survey of women who have management and executive status in corporations, presents an overview of South African women managers. Who are they? How do they tend to think? What kind of work areas and habits do they have? How do they explain their own success and the failure of other women to reach the top? And what is important to them in their day-to-day working lives? The data collected in this project have exposed some interesting trends - useful as indicators for management, for women in careers and for parties, academic and other, intent on continuing work in this research area.Vrouens wat tans verantwoordelike bestuursposte beklee, is rolmodelle en gee waardevolle terugvoering vir die toekomstige ontwikkeling van vrouekrag in Suid-Afrika. Hierdie artikel, wat gebaseer is op antwoorde ontvang in 'n landswye opname van vrouens wat bestuurs- en uitvoerende status in maatskappye het, gee 'n oorsig van Suid-Afrikaanse vroue-bestuurders. Wie is hulle? Hoe is hulle geneig om te dink? Watter soort werkareas en -gewoontes het hulle? Hoe verklaar hulle hul eie sukses en die mislukking van ander vrouens om die top te bereik? En wat is belangrik in hulle daaglikse werklewens? Die data in hierdie projek versamel, het interessante tendense blootgele - nuttig as aanduidings vir bestuur, vir vrouens in loopbane en vir instansies, akademies en ander, wat daarin belangstel om verdere werk in hierdie navorsingsarea te doen.

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The Sounds of Silence – As Heard through Patriarchy

Southern African Journal for Folklore Studies ◽

10.25159/1016-8427/4305 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 28 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Hilda Israel

Keyword(s):

Black Women ◽

South African ◽

Professional Competence ◽

Real Life ◽

African Women ◽

African Woman ◽

South African Woman ◽

Black South African ◽

South African Women ◽

And Shifts

It is the drive from work that transmogrifies her even more. She is a black, South African woman. At work, she adapts to meet expectations of her professional competence. At home, she adapts and shifts to her husband and/or father’s expectations of a woman in their culture. Within herself, she shifts her needs, emotions, and aspirations to fit into these contexts. Through it all, she carefully chooses what can be spoken, and what remains unspoken. Many factors influence this inner debate, chiefly patriarchy, race, religion, and culture. This article reflects on the premise that many black women are deprived of their spontaneous and natural being, because they have to evaluate their conversations and contexts at all times. Through the lens of patriarchy, the article seeks to identify some of the factors contributing to this inner debate, followed by real-life evidence of the shifting adaptations made by selected black, South African women. These women volunteered to share their stories by answering a questionnaire. The data they provided was then analysed through phenomenology and critical theory. These are the sounds of their silence.

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Influences on Women’s Choices of Careers in Construction: A South African Study

Construction Economics and Building ◽

10.5130/ajceb.v10i1-2.1582 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 10 (1-2) ◽

pp. 1-15 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Kolosa Madikizela ◽

Theo Haupt

Keyword(s):

South African ◽

Role Models ◽

African Women ◽

Barriers To Entry ◽

Representation Of Women ◽

Skills Shortage ◽

Successful Women ◽

Gender Based ◽

South African Women ◽

Multiple Samples

This paper analyses the factors influencing the choices of careers in construction by South African women. The literature on challenges which influence women‟s choices of careers in construction was reviewed and questionnaires were conducted with multiple samples, including construction organisations, construction students and professional women working in construction. The study found that women have a role to play in the construction industry and that they can build successful careers within the sector. However, it was not easy given the various barriers to entry such as gender-based discrimination against them, the harsh work environment of the construction site, the lack of sufficient knowledge about the industry itself and the shortage of successful women in construction as role models. There was evidence of discrimination and sexual harassment. All these factors impacted negatively on the choices of careers in construction by South African women. This study makes a contribution to our understanding of the factors that have marginalised women in a male dominated industry and provides some indication of approaches to attract more women into the sector. It is hoped that it will stimulate debate about how the low representation of women in construction can be addressed and how construction careers for women can be promoted and encouraged and that the resource pool will be enlarged given the prevalent acute skills shortage in the industry.

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You've Got to Be Real: Authenticity, Performativity and Micro-Celebrity in South Africa

Frontiers in Sociology ◽

10.3389/fsoc.2021.652485 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 6 ◽

Author(s):

Callan Dunn ◽

Nicky Falkof

Keyword(s):

South African ◽

Young Women ◽

Role Models ◽

African Women ◽

High Stakes ◽

Black South African ◽

Light Skin ◽

Slender Bodies ◽

South African Women ◽

Physical Features

For many young black South African women, the competitive arena of social media offers access to significant social and cultural capital, which can be invaluable in the unequal context in which they live. In order to succeed in this high stakes environment young women carefully construct the identities and idealised selves that they present on platforms like Instagram. They display a lifestyle of glamorous consumption, showcasing exclusive brands and fashionable items and modifying and modelling themselves to fit a beauty ideal that emphasises youth, light skin, slender bodies and straight hair. As well as these physical features, young women on Instagram are also hyper-aware of the need to appear “authentic”: to have their online lives and selves appear natural, easy and free of artifice in order to further enhance their status as role models to other women. This article draws from in-depth interviews with 10 black South African “micro-celebrities.” It reveals the central role of authenticity in these young women's online performances of self, and considers the contradictory impulses that require them to both “feel” and “appear” real. Within the framework of existing hegemonic structures, these women appear to be exercising their freedom as neoliberal citizens within a post-feminist setting. Despite the promises of freedom, however, this article reveals the way in which their performances of selfhood are powerfully constrained by normative ideas about aspiration and success.

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BREAST SELF-EXAMINATION AND CERVICAL (PAP) SMEAR TEST: ATTITUDES AND SELF-REPORTED PRACTICES AMONG SOUTH AFRICAN WOMEN

Psychological Reports ◽

10.2466/pr0.89.5.27-32 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 89 (5) ◽

pp. 27

Author(s):

KARL PELTZER

Keyword(s):

South African ◽

Pap Smear ◽

African Women ◽

Breast Self Examination ◽

Pap Smear Test ◽

Smear Test ◽

South African Women ◽

Self Examination

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THE SINS OF THE FATHER: GENDER- BASED VIOLENCE IN POST-APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA

Commonwealth Youth and Development ◽

10.25159/1727-7140/1798 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 14 (2) ◽

pp. 57-70 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Lyn Snodgrass

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Black Women ◽

South African ◽

African Women ◽

Gender Based Violence ◽

Political Issues ◽

Race And Gender ◽

Gender Based ◽

And Gender ◽

South African Women

This article explores the complexities of gender-based violence in post-apartheid South Africa and interrogates the socio-political issues at the intersection of class, ‘race’ and gender, which impact South African women. Gender equality is up against a powerful enemy in societies with strong patriarchal traditions such as South Africa, where women of all ‘races’ and cultures have been oppressed, exploited and kept in positions of subservience for generations. In South Africa, where sexism and racism intersect, black women as a group have suffered the major brunt of this discrimination and are at the receiving end of extreme violence. South Africa’s gender-based violence is fuelled historically by the ideologies of apartheid (racism) and patriarchy (sexism), which are symbiotically premised on systemic humiliation that devalues and debases whole groups of people and renders them inferior. It is further argued that the current neo-patriarchal backlash in South Africa foments and sustains the subjugation of women and casts them as both victims and perpetuators of pervasive patriarchal values.

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