Lauretta Ngcobo, a South African in exile, speaks of her oppression as a woman and a black in South Africa, of the lives and struggles of women, and of liberation. This articles from a paper presented at a women's meeting in Botswana in March 1977, sponsored by the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation and the Methodist Women.

Once I had overcome the initial awesome feeling when I was first asked to speak at this gathering, a new cold feeling swept in. I thought about oppression and liberation. I wondered which of the many oppressions in my femaleness and in my blackness weighs on me heaviest; which of the many liberations I thirst for most of all . Do I thirst most  to be liberated from my colour, from my class, my ignorance or my tradition ; from economic domination or is it the liberation from all male domination that women all over the world are struggling for today? Seeking to balance male privileges against female exploitation, or is it perhaps the quest for liberation peculiar to Southern Africa today, a desire for National liberation from oppressive domination ; a desire to determine our destiny as a people. Questions similar to these screamed at me and widened as they engulfed in ripples, and I felt truly shackled in a coil of bonds. These forces and many more form a formidable challenge to the women of Southern Africa. I took them each in turn, looked at them critically and laid them aside carefully; and when the brainstorm was over, only two major challenges remained vying for my first loyalty - two liberations to be won. These are the Women's World-wide Movement for justice in the communities in which they form one half of the population. And the other is the National Liberation Struggle in Southern Africa. These two sharp divisions constitute my world; my divided world; the world as I have known it; clean , distinct divisions between men and women and between black people and white people.

I know men . I have lived with them, I have even loved them, in spite of their separate world .in a world they have created for themselves. I have seen them in their world oppressed, battered and reduced by forces greater than themselves and I have watched them battling with severe problems in the society that's been created for us. Our men have suffered a great historical crime. But if our men have suffered, ours is a double fold burden. Let us look at the life of women in Southern Africa . Through apartheid and similar policies we can make today the disgraceful claim of holding one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world. Only black women know the full impact of the suffering this causes. Some sociologists and politicians have complained of a high birthrate among our people, no doubt recounting the  statistics of babies born everyday ; but few of them stand at the cemetery gates to count the endless stream of little coffins to be buried there. For women this is not just a sad fact; this imposes further biological demands of frequent pregnancies with the attendant debilitating effect this has on the quality of life and health. Pregnancies tend to multi ply in an effort to ensure against a further depleting reduction of family numbers. Thus we are launched on a vicious circle - more pregnancies , weaker mothers, weaker babies (with malnutrition to help along) ; more children, greater poverty, more deaths. Motherhood, the most demanding of physical duties is for us multiplied and made more fruitless . Apartheid is hardest on our men - let us see how t his affects our women. The deteriorating quality of life for the black man is demanding greater resources of strength and stronger qualities from us black women - the result is that the women are bearing the brunt and our society is fast becoming a society run by women. In the reserves, women plough the land, and make for themselves and their children a meagre living from the barren land in t he absence of t heir men who spend long periods of time confined in work compounds in far away cities. Where our societies were shattered and dismembered, so that men had to leave for the cities it was our security that was destroyed, leaving us to care and raise fatherless families. When men have been paid little for their labour, the women have received even less ; when men have found other women in the cities to while away the time they have brought greater suffering to both the city woman and the country wife alike. When men have turned to alcoholic drinks for consolation, women have suffered humiliation at the hands of white men. When they have gone to prisons in numbers, they have left wives to explain the inexplicable to the children. It is another vicious circle - when men have been severely oppressed, women have risen and become dominant, this in turn has further emasculated our men and made them even more reckless in their treatment of women in general. In spite of all these things we still have to make a choice between our liberation as women and national liberation .

In different parts of the world today women are demanding equal recognition with men in all walks of life and rejecting a home-shackled existence. But we are behind everyone else in the world - where other women are rejecting the home-centred life , our women are denied even that. With their men in  the cities our women can't even boast of caring for houses, for they stand straddled between fathers and children , forever trying to create a kind of a family unity. 

But what have our men done to reduce the impact of this double load of oppression on their women? Admittedly , in many spheres of social life they are powerless to please us and give us our rights. They cannot, for instance, give us a better quality education , they cannot save us from crime and violence; they cannot give us greater justice and greater dignity, better homes and better social institutions - they are powerless and they could not give us decision -making positions; for they themselves have none. Were our women to launch a frontal attack on men and join hands with all the women of the world at this stage; would they attain their liberation? If they did, would it not be the same oppression as that of their men? Do our women really want to share the dismal position of their men - do we want to be equal to such abysmal humiliation? Certainly not. We are then left with one option only, and that is to fight side by side with our men for our National Liberation . This all-encompassing oppression of the white man has got to go first; the dignity of our men has got to be regained ; our national heritage and our self-determination has got to be restored to us . Our rights to choose who is to govern us and what social system to create is paramount. Therefore our first struggle is for liberation - our National Liberation . Having made this decision we turn to our men. What can we do to achieve together our liberation? We are ready, but are our men ready; ready to fight the enemy with us on their side? In the context of our Southern African Struggle can it be honestly said that women are in the struggle with their men? It is not that women have not done enough to prove their ability, yet today, few if any hold executive positions in any of the parties. Over the years in this century the women have shown great courage and an indomitable spirit against the enemy and against a faceless reflection by their menfolk.

I cannot recount the history of our women in this struggle, but I think it fitting here to take a quick look at the women over the last sixty years. Way back in 1913 in South Africa the first rebellion against the passes, after the Union of 1910, was by the women of the Free State, followed by women in other parts. These women not only had to carry the bitter humiliating passes, but they had to buy them every month by their own humiliation and oppression. As early as 1918 women felt the need to form their own Congress. These were great women, courageous women under that fearless woman, Mrs. Charlotte Maxeke - they fought a fight as bravely and at the same time as the suffragettes of England. Wonderful. We, of today, are proud to have been nurtured in that spirit. Even though their names grace very few books, they will not be forgotten and their example will continue to be emulated. Faced with similar, if graver challenges today we draw our inspiration from them. Our women have continued to wage a relentless fight for complete overthrow of the system of government as it exists today. Over the years several organisations have been formed by women along side the main African Political Organisations. There was first the Women's Congress already referred to above which was started in 1918 and headed by Mrs. Charlotte Maxeke. Later, there was the Women's League of the ANC. There was also the Federation of South African Women which was multiracial; and several others. These organisations have played prominent roles but they were often confined to what are called "Women's Needs". But they too disappeared when the major political organisations disappeared after Sharpville. However, women did not stop participating in the sporadic eruptions of discontent and activities from the underground. I am reminded of the Labour Strikes of 1973 - Women in the factories of New Germany near Durban and some in Pine town participated actively in the strike and showed courage even at great risk. Among the members of the Black People's Convention (BPC) and at the Black Community Programme are women who have been banned and arrested. Young women of the Students' Movements have not left the present scaring struggle at home to the boys. Together with the boys they have been shot and killed, they are in prisons and they are in exile. We have, throughout this century gone into prison, ready to face all atrocities there; we have united and fought as one at different times; sometimes we have chosen to go to jail rather than pay fines. We have boycotted buses, built shacks and squatted around Johannesburg (Emasakeni), joined in the Defiance Campaign of 1952 and demonstrated by the thousands right on the door of the Government buildings; back in 1955 and 1956. Looking back now, these were mild civil defences - yet they have not improved our situation - rather they have led to a tightening of the laws, greater brutality, and hysterical hatred.

How We Are Fighting Today

And I know you sit there, impatient to hear what I have got to say about Women in Liberation now; in our own time, not in our history. Today war is upon us. In Rhodesia and South Africa war is upon us and people are dying in their thousands. There is no way to wish it away or to change the course of history somehow. Nobody can turn the clock back now - not even Mr. Smith or Mr. Vorster whom I know hate this war more than we. Yes, war is upon us with all its attendant pain and suffering. Today we watch the might of great Nations pitched against the pitifully defenceless people. This is an unfair war, for it involves the unarmed and oppressed people on the one hand and the strong well-armed oppressors on the other. In this war people have got to know why they are fighting. They have got to be clear about the correctness of their own course, and they have got to learn unconventional methods of war in order to liberate their countries i.e. they have got to learn a different type of war. They have to learn to fight in the cities where they live or in the rural areas where they live, without being found out. It is a secret war where you must learn to hide in the mountains and the caves and the forests; in the cities your own people hide you -  you hide in the crowds and the lanes and the houses and the pipes in the street. The fighters know whom they are fighting and all their actions are directed only against the enemy. The enemy is the Government, the police and all other bodies and agencies that support the government. The strong point about this war is that the enemy does not know whom he is fighting. It could be the girl who makes his breakfast before he goes out to shoot more blacks with his gun. This is a war fought by all the people, not just the soldiers. The aim is to inflict damage on the authorities who ill-treat the people. The aim of this war is to destroy the military power of the oppressor as well as his political, economic and social system. One very important point about the fighter is that while he fights the enemy, he must show every consideration and love for the ordinary people. He is a friend of the ordinary people and he does what he can to protect them. 

I know, ticking at the back of every mind now are hundreds of questions - Do you really expect us, women, Christian women to take part in a war; wars are neither Christian nor are they for women. I shall give a quick answer to that - you are at war already - whether you choose or not; your sons and daughters and husbands are dead and they continue to die - the enemy does not choose whom they kill - woman, girl or child - they kill without choosing. And, as for being Christians, it is precisely for that reason that you have to fight, to preserve God's will on Earth - Jesus once beat up people in the temple when they did things that were against God's will in there. In the same way, God does not ask black people to crawl on their knees before .Him. Why should they do so before the white oppressors? It is against God's will to oppress other people, and we should be doing God's will if we stop the oppressors from oppressing us. We should fight back. Praying about our dead children is good but it is not going to stop more of our children from being killed. We have got to fight back.