Becoming Postcolonial: African Women Changing the Meaning of Citizenship

This article describes the progress of the women's movement in Zimbabwe since independence. While the Lancaster Agreement afforded many Zimbabweans with limited social, educational, & economic benefits, it did not make the transformative changes needed in order to provide all citizens with arable land. The anticolonial struggles did, however, provide women with the opportunity to become political, despite attempts by the neocolonial state to limit the entry of black women into the public sector. Following independence, primary level education was made available for all & gave women the opportunity to craft new identities. Furthermore, women were afforded basic healthcare, including reproductive health care. The women's movement has become increasingly pivotal in shaping policy over a broader range of issues & by the end of the 1990s it had entered into a politically strategic alliance with the National Constitutional Assembly. However, in the past few years, the women's movement has become largely silent in the face of state repression. Appendixes, References. R. Prince