Women in battle dress: how clothes have been used as a form of protest

Dressed all in black or refusing to be draped in black, wearing traditional regalia or protesting against it — or even going naked: the clothing might change, but its place in women’s protest has not, write Leonie Wagner and Nadine Dreyer

09 August 2020 - 00:00 By Leonie Wagner and Nadine Dreyer

When Tshegofatso Pule was found stabbed to death and hanged from a tree in June, South Africans were overcome with grief. This act of indescribable cruelty traumatised a nation overwhelmed with despair at the endless pandemic of violence against women. Tshegofatso’s body, bloody and battered, was discovered hanging from a blue-gum tree in a patch of veld in Durban Deep, Roodepoort. She was eight months pregnant...

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