The ANC Womens League

First formed in the early twentieth century, the ANC Womens League has grown into a leading organization in the womens movement in South Africa. The league has been at the forefront of the nations century-long transition from an authoritarian state to a democracy that espouses gender equality as a core constitutional value. It has, indeed, always regarded itself as the womens movement, frequently asserting its primacy as a vanguard organization and as the only legitimate voice of the women of South Africa. But, as this deeply insightful book shows, the history of the league is a more complicated affairit was neither the only womens organization in the political field nor an easy ally for South African feminism.