Men, Movements, and Gender Transformation in South Africa

In the last decade, South Africa has undergone a major political transformation. The ending of apartheid and the installation of a democratically elected, black majority government has had major implications for gender policy and gender relations in the country. This paper examines how men collectively have responded to these changes. It identifies a number of different men's movements and locates them in terms of their relationship to the goal of gender equity being pursued by government. It draws on the work of Mike Messner to suggest what contribution these movements might, or might not, make to gender transformation in the country. Finally, it examines the importance of race and the apartheid past to suggest that any analysis of men and gender politics should be sensitive to different understandings of gender and location within the current gender order.