Download or read book The ANC Women’s League written by Shireen Hassim and published by Ohio University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-12 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First formed in the early twentieth century, the ANC Women’s League has grown into a leading organization in the women’s movement in South Africa. The league has been at the forefront of the nation’s century-long transition from an authoritarian state to a democracy that espouses gender equality as a core constitutional value. It has, indeed, always regarded itself as the women’s movement, frequently asserting its primacy as a vanguard organization and as the only legitimate voice of the women of South Africa. But, as this deeply insightful book shows, the history of the league is a more complicated affair — it was neither the only women’s organization in the political field nor an easy ally for South African feminism.