Agenda 1 Mar New '01

Against the background of these oftenheard statements made by women, this article hopes to contribute to heightening an awareness of the goals of South Africa’s equality legislation by commenting on the Equality Clause and its significance for gender equity. It will also examine the implications of recent judgments for gender equity and finally, discuss some of the obstacles to realising the intentions of the Equality Clause for women. The article will also examine advances made by women since 1994 – a period that has seen growing class inequalities in South Africa, including among different classes of women. Some educated middle and uppermiddle class women may have benefited through the opening up of new avenues in the service sector, information industry and government departments. The majority of women however, have borne the main burden of increasing unemployment and lack of delivery in state-aided programmes in education, health and welfare and the consequent decline in their economic status. In a context where more than 50 percent of the population lives in abject poverty (Budlender, 1999) of what significance is the promotion of gender equality? For gender activists this poses a challenge to analyse and expose the gendered nature of poverty and inequality as something that affects all aspects of women and men’s lives. It also requires insight as to how equality, or the lack thereof, translates into day-to-day experiences for people. It means not limiting equality to abstract terms or a purely legal matter (Commission on Gender Equality, 2000). For the majority of women in South Africa, day-to-day existence is spent trying to secure money and food for the next day. This struggle for basic survival makes longterm planning almost impossible.