The Least Sexist Society? Perspectives on Gender, Change and Violence among southern African San

This article refutes essentialist popular and academic discourses revolving around the presumption of primordial gender equality and harmony among the San of southern Africa. These discourses continue to ignore the devastating gendered consequences of land and cultural dispossession, poverty and the large-scale militarisation of the San. The discussion focuses on contemporary gender-based violence among San communities against the background of those socio-economic, political and cultural influences that have fundamentally altered gender relations among southern African San. The central argument presented is that, relatively recently, and as a result of specific social and historical circumstances, distinct and hierarchically organised perceptions of 'men' and 'women' have begun to establish themselves to varying degrees among southern African San communities. It is argued that violence between San men and women has been reproduced and exacerbated by the San people's re-appropriation of gender as a significant social category, which is, however, highly ambiguous and contradictory. The comparative analysis employed in this paper draws on recent field research among three major communities of San, at Schmidts-drift in the Northern Cape (South Africa), Ghanzi district in western Botswana, and Tsumkwe West, the area formerly known as 'Western Bushmanland', in north-eastern Namibia. In conclusion, the paper takes up again the cultural discourse of 'traditional' gender equality and harmony, and asks how this, within the wider context of contemporary cultural reclamation, may become a strategic, although contested, tool to address contemporary gender concerns among San people.