Depiction of gender based violence against black South African: a post colonial literary investigation into Sindiwe Magona's <i>Beauty's gift</i>

Abstract

This article seeks to explore the patriarchal colonial legacy that is still dominating the post-colonial era and its impacton the lives of black South African women. In the course of colonisation, black South African women endured hardships, injustices and inequalities of unprecedented magnitude. This could be evidenced by the torture and humiliationof, for instance, Sarah Baartman. In 1994, South Africa became a democratic country in which everyone shares human rights such as the right to equality and the right to freedom. The freedom Charter states: ‘The rights of the people shall be the same, regardless of race, colour or sex.’Nevertheless, women in the post-colonial South Africa, feel the opposite of the aforementioned rule as their lives are threatened to the core. Today, cases of women abuse, murder, kidnapping, sexual violence and unfair treatment are reported from time to time. These horrific acts against women have galvanised South African citizens to unite and raise their voices through literary writings, movements, campaigns and documentaries and other artistic expressions.This study focuses on Magona’s postcolonial, post-independence novel, Beauty’s Gift (2008),which mirrors the odds stacked against black women in the democratic South Africa. It uses Afro-Feminism/ Womanism as the main theoretical premise which underpin the dimensions of violence against women in the post-colonial South Africa and how these dimensions and manifestations of violence can be eradicated.

Keywords: Afro-Feminism, Womanism, postcolonialism, gender violence, abuse, patriarchy