U.S. and Non-U.S. Scholars

Fulbright New Century Scholars Program
Overview • Previous NCS Programs • NCS Scholar List • NCS Brochure • 2004-2005

Pregaluxmi Govender

Associate, Africa Gender Institute

University of Cape Town, South Africa

Research: Politics and Power: Assessing the lessons of the first decade of South Africa's democracy for the empowerment of women nationally and globally

Pregs Govender is a feminist activist and writer whose research and writing investigates the intersections between, and the possibilities for redefining, sexuality, spirituality, politics, leadership and power.

Since June 2002 she has been an Associate at the Africa Gender Institute at the University of Cape Town. She writes an editorial page column for SA's largest weekly, the Sunday Times, and occasional features for the Mail & Guardian. Her current activities also include serving on the Nelson Mandela Foundation's Aids Advisory Board. She represented the Board on the Expert Review Panel of the Foundation's research with the Human Sciences Research Council on HIV/AIDS (2003 and 2004).

Pregs served as an African National Congress Member of Parliament from 1994 to May 2002 in the National Assembly and was Chair of the Joint Monitoring Committee on the Quality of Life and Status of Women. In the 2004 study 'Gender in Southern African Politics: Ringing up the Changes' (CL Morna(ed)) she is credited with "driving one of the most remarkable gender justice reform agendas to have taken place in such a short period of time". This included pioneering and politically steering SA's Women's Budget, establishing priorities for legislative change and ensuring that over 80% of these were enacted into law.

Her political activism began as a high school student in 1974, as elected secretary of its student body. She continued through university, community, women's and political organisations fighting apartheid. Her professional life began as an educator at high schools, at the University of Durban-Westville (UDW) and then as National Educator in SA's clothing and textile workers' union. She established and headed SA's first Worker's College. In 1992 she was employed by the Women's National Coalition (WNC) to conceptualise, direct and manage its campaign. The Women's Charter it produced, through participatory research, is estimated to have involved two million women.
She has received several local and international awards for her writing and activism. These include the 1999 AWID Inspiration Award "recognising an extraordinary individual whose initiative, leadership and unrelenting commitment have made a significant impact in advancing gender equality and social justice around the world". In 2003, she received an Honorary Doctorate in Philosophy from UDW, for "her contribution to the community and political transformation". She is presently the first Ruth First Fellow (Ruth First was a prominent ANC activist and journalist assassinated by the apartheid state) in recognition of her writing and activism.

Selected Publications:

Editor: South Africa's Country Report on the Status of Women for the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, September 1995. (Co-editors: D.Budlender and N.Madlala-Routledge). Publisher: Government Printers, Pretoria, 1995.

Editor: "How best can SA address the horrific impact of Hiv/Aids on women and girls?" Tabled and published by the SA Parliament, February 2002.

HSRC Institutional Review 2003: Wrote the sections on: 'Gender as a Cross-cutting theme' and integrated this perspective in 'Equity: Race and Gender'; 'Gender Updated'; and the rest of the report. HSRC Publishers, 2003.

Redefining Power and Leadership Based on Courage and Compassion

This research aims to interrogate the politics of power from a feminist perspective and examines possibilities for redefinition of, as well as the intersection of power, politics, spirituality and sexuality. It assesses the lessons of South Africa's first decade of democracy for the empowerment of women nationally and globally. My methodology is autobiographical and reflective, while at the same time examining existing theories and practices of power and leadership.

The research examines and documents initiatives undertaken in South Africa's first democratic Parliament to address gender inequalities produced by apartheid and exacerbated by globalization. These initiatives are described as "one of the most remarkable gender justice reform agendas to have taken place in such a short period of time".

The research examines the interface of social constructions of gender with other forms of systemic power, such as class and race, which ensures that in every marginalized group, those experiencing the worst discrimination and oppression are female. It investigates the understanding, ownership and exercise of power needed to change the fact that the majority of those who are poorest and bear the brunt of HIV/Aids and violence (in homes to wars) are female.

It focuses on the transformation of policies, laws, budgets and institutions and practice in post-apartheid South Africa. It examines, for example, the development of SA's model of gender-responsive budgeting as a means of addressing the needs of women as the majority of the poorest. It addresses the manner in which this informed a specific approach to the issue of HIV/Aids and military spending, which demanded leadership of courage and compassion.

The research argues that in creatively and effectively identifying and engaging strategies to ensure that women globally are empowered, it is essential to define and exercise leadership and power with fundamentally different priorities, values and vision to those that have traditionally dominated patriarchal politics. The study is inspired by the use of silence as power, fundamentally different to oppressive silence. This model of silent listening (to oneself and others), inspired and underpinned the exercise of power and leadership through the initiatives in Parliament, which this research investigates. It draws on examples such as Nelson Mandela, who used the silence and solitude of twenty-seven years in prison to delve deeply within himself. The research explores how power and leadership committed to social justice and equality can ensure deep-rooted transformation in the lives of people across our planet.