CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION
7.4 Recommendations
Women should refrain from regarding themselves as victims of the patriarchal and apartheid system in the case of South Africans. Instead of lamenting, they should start contributing to the transformed literary canon which evinces a positive female perspective; and the political climate in South Africa allows them to do that. Although Adichie (2014:4) contends that gender is not an easy conversation to have as it makes people uncomfortable, sometimes even irritable, its status quo should not be left unchallenged. She further maintains that both men and women are resistant to gender issues and are quick to dismiss it as a problem because it is an uncomfortable subject to engage with (ibid.).
As an African woman employed by the Department of Education in the capacity of Deputy Chief Educational Specialist, my concern is the impact of reading novels and plays like those that were selected for this study at school as prescribed literature material for young girls. In the process of this study some colleagues made me
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aware that what I thought were concerns with regards to isiZulu literary texts and Zulu male authors was not restricted to this society, but that it is observable across African cultures. Thus negative representation of women images seems to cut across different African languages available in the country. I also concur with them as works such as those of Machaba, Mathye and many others consulted as part of an extensive literature review supported the above notion.
African languages committees should be established whose functions would include the screening of set books that are going to be prescribed for schools. These should be books that promote gender equality and tolerance. It should also be literature that discourages gender-based violence. School girls need novels that tell stories of what women of strength have achieved, so that they can look up to them and in that way develop a positive self-image. Literature is meant to entertain and educate as well as build the nation and not to perpetuate evil.
The challenge of changing the mind-set of children should not only be the responsibility of schools and teachers. Parents should also be part of the movement towards social change. Household chores should be assigned equally amongst children without gendering tasks; for example, both girl and boy children should be taught how to cook and clean the house. This would gradually change the thinking that domestic chores are for girls and outdoor responsibilities are for boys. Different types of media also have a very important role to play in undoing past stereotypical thinking. Large companies rely on media for marketing their products. What if advertisements on South African television were to show male characters using a washing machine to advertise a washing powder, for example? The African male writers need to consciously make radical changes in the way they represent women of the 21st century.
Finally, it is hoped that this study is one of the many attempts that have been made to break the deafening silence and isolation of African female scholars and African women writers. The four selected literary texts cannot guarantee to have done justice to this broad and multidisciplinary topic. However, the selected texts cover a wide period of time in the history of South Africa; namely one novel written during the apartheid era, one play written during the transitional period and two plays written a
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decade after liberation. Despite the contributions that this study has made to the feminist critical reading of isiZulu literature, it cannot cover all the isiZulu literary genres. Of interest will be further studies that compare the depiction of women images in post-apartheid isiZulu novels, drama and other folklore genres authored by males as opposed to those written by female authors.
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