Only in SA could allowing women to vote take democracy backwards
Sexist attitudes in parliament may have softened, but with Afrikaner nationalism, racism was on the rise
14 August 2022 - 00:00
Among the first South Africans to call for equal rights for women was author Olive Schreiner, who said they were reduced “like the field tick to the passive exercise of their sex functions alone”. Her 1883 novel The Story of an African Farm raised many a male eyebrow. In 1892 a call to enfranchise women was made in the Cape House of Assembly. The prime minister John X Merriman, writes Prof Cherryl Walker, “drew cheers and laughter with a speech which mixed folk sayings and scripture to condemn the proposal out of hand...
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