Abstract
This thesis argues that the representation of women’s silences and their vocality in four South African feminist texts is a condemnation of practices that marginalise women and girls. The four texts I read are: And They Didn’t Die (1990), Beauty’s Gift (2008), Nasty Women Talk Back: Feminist Essays On the Global Women’s Marches (2018) and Surfacing: On Being Black and Feminist in South Africa (2021). A mix of novels; short-form fiction and nonfiction, over two articles, I show that these four texts represent women protagonists’ silences as a function of patriarchy and their vocality as an attempt for women protagonists to reclaim their bodily autonomy and sexual agency. And in so doing, disrupt patriarchy. I explore how the rules of sexuality established for girls and women create the marginalisation they face. I contend that the established patriarchal gender norms and cultural practices in South Africa have led to women's loss of voice and power over their sexuality. This creates the existing gender inequalities. The women cannot direct their womanhood. Theoretical frameworks such as African feminism and Intersectionality inform this thesis. African feminism is characterised by writing and speaking about the problems women face and on the other hand, Intersectionality shows how the issues women face are characterised by inferior positions and ultimately influenced by race, gender, sex and class jointly. The short life-writing pieces are the vocalisation against sexual violence and homophobia women and young girls experience. The feminist writers of the two anthologies: Nasty Women Talk Back: and Surfacing: On Being Black and Feminist in South Africa share their lived experiences through reflection and that is a way to champion women who are vocal and claim their agency. The seized sexual agency enables sexual violence, domestic violence, emotional abuse as well as the discrimination of queer black women who face corrective rape to turn them into heterosexual women they are deemed to be; obedient.