Women in Mozambique: gender struggle and gender politics

Women and the remaking of politics in Southern Africa: negotiating autonomy, incorporation and representation

“…The conference thus signified a "male gender struggle to regain control". If previously women had been admonished to be leaders of their own emancipation, they were now reminded that men were in charge of women's affairs (Arnfred 1991). Commentators at the time liked to quote the wife of the president, Graça Machel, then a member of the OMM executive and a minister, warning before the 1984 conference that "the party thinks that because it created OMM it can direct it.…”

“…The November 1984 conference of the OMM was described as an affair where men, most prominently the president himself, dominated the podium and the discussions, while women looked on. Only one of five days was given over to group discussions (Arnfred 1988). The conference thus signified a "male gender struggle to regain control".…”

Las mujeres y la guerrilla: ¿un espacio para las políticas de género?

“…También en las guerras de liberación colonial que tuvieron lugar en África en las décadas de los 60, 70 y 80 jugaron un importante papel: Mozambique o Namibia son ejemplos de ello 14 . Especialmente relevante fue la contribución de las mujeres en Sudáfrica, en las fuerzas del African National Congress (ANC), así como en las guerrillas Mau-Mau en Kenia con un 5% de los efectivos 15 , y constituyeron también un destacado 25% del total del ZANLA en Zimbabwe 16 .…”

Rethinking sexualities in Africa

“…So there we are: international authorities have spoken. Forget about details or local conditions and contexts, or that in some places-as for example in northern Mozambique-a repeated exercise, gradually producing an elongation of the small lips of the vagina ( labiae minorae ) is reported, by women and men alike, to greatly enhance physical pleasure in the sexual encounter (Arnfred 1988(Arnfred , 2003. Everything, which happens to be different from the way in which we in the West treat our genitals, is classified as mutilation.…”