Rudo Gaidzanwa, Women and land in Zimbabwe, Paper presented at the Conference “Why Women matter in agriculture” Sweden, April 4-8, 2011
A corpus of works have refocused their attention on women, gender and addressing inequalities in many African countries and Zimbabwe has not been left out in Social sciences like Sociology, Political Science, Social Work, History among others. Sociology of Feminism, politics, family and Gender are such topical issues in modern day Zimbabwe. An experienced Professor of Sociology at the University of Zimbabwe, Rudo B. Gaidzanwa has written extensively on the above mentioned academic areas in Sociology and she is exceptional with her insights on Family, Feminism and Gender. This 2011 publication is worth a revisit in light of the recent remarks made by the Manicaland Senator Judith Mawire on the International Women’s Day ( March 2017)arguing that President Mugabe should be life President because, “he freed all women who are now empowered and free to do anything in this country”.
In as much as there is political rhetoric in Zimbabwe’s discourse with much celebratory notions of arguing that women can do it in all facets of life, Professor Rudo Gaidzanwa’s work is worth reading for it is an eye opener to many who are not familiar with inequalities on land, property and women’s rights. When Zimbabwe won its independence from the British imperialists a number of colonial, imperial laws were inherited by the black majority government and hence efforts to address those issues have been pointed out by the Rudo Gaidzanwa in her 1995 work were she articulates the challenges on equity to access across age, class and gender. Thus the paper’s main thrust is a discussion of the varying cultural, political, and administrative factors that lead to a limited number of women beneficiaries in the land reform program and also lack of an effective tenure security given for women and how this lack of security demotivates women from investing in the land and agriculture as a sustainable livelihood.
Again the background of women working as labourers and not as partners with their husbands is brought to book, inheritance laws, the divorced, customary, statutory laws on land ownership are also highlighted. Some of Prof Gaidzanwa’s works to be added to one’s library include Images of Women in Zimbabwean Literature (1985),Gender and Canon Formation: Women, Men and Literary Art in Africa, Voting with their Feet and Doctors in the era of Structural Adjustment as well Gender, Women and Electoral Politics in Zimbabwe among many other articles.
Apart from that readers can also go beyond the land issue which Gaidzanwa addressed by following disparities in political leadership in Zimbabwe were women are also marginalized as evidenced by the current political ministerial set up. Questions still linger on whether it is worthy celebration or not, achievements made since independence on women and gender in Zimbabwe. Is it a valid statement to push for calling of life presidency in relation to celebration of the International Women’s Day? Perhaps more needs to be done if one is to get well acquainted with Prof Gaidzanwa’s literature on the topic.
The paper ends with some options to improve women’s tenure security. Also Prof Gaidzanwa views the land reform programme as an accomplishment by the Zimbabwe government which is vital for the black people but with some internal issues to be addressed. The paper is a valuable academic weapon to classroom practitioners, activists, feminists, researchers and students of Sociology.
© 2017, Brian Maregedze
University of Zimbabwe
