Women's Rights

A year prior to her attempt to enter Parliament Alexander had been banned from a different activity. On 1 April 1953 she had met with Francis Baard, Florence Matomela, Helen Joseph, Gus Coe and others to discuss the formation of a women's organisation. The Federation of South African Women was formed and Alexander opened the first meeting on 17 April 1954. She was elected Secretary of the organisation, but banned almost immediately, preventing her from participating further in the organisation.

Alexander believes in the equality of all people and this has informed her concern for the rights of women throughout her life. "It is a concern, however," she insists, "that I have never been prepared to promote outside of the broader political struggle. For this reason I refused to join the National Council of Women when approached to do so many years ago. I saw it as a bourgeois organisation, supported by the wives of wealthy businessman and company directors. The women's struggle is for me an inherent part of the broader political struggle in which I am involved. It is not something apart from or adjacent to it. I become deeply concerned when it is promoted apart from the struggle, on the assumption that women somehow constitute a homogeneous group who have a common set of interests that

transcend race and class. The lives of women, like those of men, are influenced and moulded by race, class and other factors. To suggest that these factors can be ignored in promoting the rights of women is tantamount to suggesting that the divide between rich and poor women, or black and white women can be glossed over or even accepted. I believe in equality between women and men, I believe in economic and racial equality between all people. The one cannot be separated from the other."

Conceding that the trade union movement has been as male dominated as most other organisations, Alexander also insists that the time has come for the affirmation of women's rights: "Women realise that liberation which excludes women's rights is not liberation at all. An increasing number of men are, in turn, beginning to realise this as well. New beginnings are always important times in history. We must grasp this 'new time' in South Africa to advance the cause of liberation at every level, and that includes the liberation of women. If we miss this moment, the struggle could be set back at every level for several generations."