This study assesses the challenges confronted by rural women participating in small-scale commercial farming in Tweespruit, a rural town of the Free State Province. A qualitative, descriptive and explorative study was used for the study, and data was collected using focus group discussions during August 2015. The study found that rural women farmers are extremely challenged, as they are inadequately equipped as farmers, and they do not receive adequate aid from government or other entities, to enable them to turn their form of farming from subsistence farming to a more beneficial, commercialized form of farming. As a result, the study made the following recommendations. Firstly, the government should intensify programmes and strategies aimed at assisting rural women involved in farming activities. Secondly, it should also assist these farmers with training, especially in modern farming technologies, so as to grow their business into a commercialized form of farming. Finally, it was recommended that government facilitates these farmers to obtain funding from foreign donors to further grow their business.

This thesis is an exploration of diaries and letters written by middle-class English-speaking settler women living on the Eastern Cape frontier between 1820 and 1890. By according primacy to these women’s experiences and perceptions, it aims for a greater understanding of women’s encounters with the frontier, and how these were articulated in their personal writing. An emphasis on the recurrent themes of ill-health, fearfulness and solitude undermines the popular myth of the brave, conquering, invincible pioneers which dominates settler historiography to date. The tensions felt by white women living on the frontier disrupted their identities as middle-class Victorian ‘ladies’, and as a result these women either constantly re-established a sense of self, or absorbed some aspects of the Eastern Cape, and thus redefined themselves. Settler women’s experiences of the frontier changed little during the seventy year period spanned by this study, indicating that frontier life led to a rigidification and reinforcement of old, familiar values and behaviours. Rather than adapting to and embracing their new surroundings, settler women sought to duplicate accepted, conventional Victorian ideals and customs. White Victorian women identified themselves as refined, civilized, moral and respectable, and perceived Africa and Africans as untamed, immoral, uncivilized and threatening. To keep these menacing, destabilizing forces at bay, settler women attempted to recreate ‘home’ in the Eastern Cape; to domesticate the frontier by rendering it as familiar and predictable as possible. The fear, illness and solitariness that characterise settler women’s personal writings manifest their attempts to eliminate alienating difference, and record their refusal to truly engage with the frontier landscape and its inhabitants.

No description available.

A dissertation submitted to the faculty of arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of master of arts (clinical psychology) / The present research study, located in the field of social psychology and attribution theory investigated variations in causal attributions of abused women in relation to reported severity, duration and frequency of the abuse. The study aimed to expand current attributional research to incorporate global/specific attributional dimensions of blame. Although theories of learned helplessness have been linked to global attributions of blame, this relationship has been under-researched in the area of women abuse. [Abbreviated Abstract. Open document to view full version] / AC2017

No abstract available. / Thesis (M. A.)-University of Durban-Westville, 2004.

Thesis (DPhil)--University of Stellenbsoch, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available via the Internet.

Assignment (MPhil)--University of Stellenbosch, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available via the Internet.

Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Technology: Construction Management Department of Construction Management and Quantity Surveying in the Faculty of Engineering at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology 2015 / This study examines factors contributing to the successful mentorship of women in the South African construction industry. Mentorship is used as a tool to advance women in organisations, because they have experienced difficulties progressing in their careers in the past. Even though women are in mentorship programmes, they still receive less mentorship functions than their counterparts. As a result, women have limited advancement in the construction industry due to factors affecting their successful mentorship. This study identifies and examines the factors contributing to the successful mentorship of women. The objectives of this study were to: (1) test the extent of the influence that the psychosocial mentoring function has on the successful mentorship of women; (2) test the extent of the influence of the career mentoring function on the successful mentorship of women; (3) determine whether the age, gender and race of the mentor-mentee have an impact on the successful mentorship of women; (4) examine the perception of the impact of the entrepreneurial ability of women on the mentorship programme; and (5) to determine whether the mentorship of female mentees is affected by the attitudes of mentors. An in-depth pilot study was carried out during the initial stages of the study to gain more insight about the study. Data was collected by means of semi-structured interviews from female mentees in the Western Cape Province. Data was analysed by content analysis. Findings revealed that the gender and the race of mentors did not have an impact on the success of the female mentees’ mentorship. The age of mentors did impact on knowledge gain. Female mentees reported having open and positive relationships with their mentors. A survey study approach was adopted in the main study. A purposive sampling of female mentees and their mentors was selected. Data was gathered in South Africa. Inferential and descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data. Findings revealed that the psychosocial mentoring characteristics and career mentoring characteristics that influence the successful mentorship of women are role modelling, counselling, acceptance-and-confirmation, coaching and providing challenging tasks. It also emerged that the age and race of female mentees did not have an influence on the successful mentorship of women and that the successful mentorship of women is not affected by the attitude of mentors. It was found that mentors have positive attitudes towards the mentorship of women and that this is contributing positively to the successful mentorship of women in the South African construction industry. The study also revealed that female mentees are high performers, whose knowledge and productivity has increased in the work place. The study therefore concludes that the mentorship of female mentees in the construction industry is successful. It is recommended that females in the construction industry should register themselves to mentorship organisations such as SAWIC, especially those who are not mentored.

M.A. (Historical studies) / The years 1980s and 1990s saw a different kind of violence in South Africa, especially in Venda. South Africa's long history of violence was always associated with the anti-apartheid struggle and a good example of this was the 1976 student uprising in Soweto. During the 1980s and 1990s many people accused of practicing witchcraft were killed and the perpetrators were showered with praises from all quarters of the community. It is believed that the majority of those who perished were women. This was possible because the idea that witches were women had gained fertile ground both at Fefe, Tshiungani and also in academic work. Many academic writers and popular memory showed little interest in women's role in witchcraft killings. Only men were viewed as comrades. These are the perceptions that this research will attempt to disprove. At the end statements such as witches were not always women, women were not always passive and finally, women were also comrades will be made, therefore disproving perceptions that people might have nurtured all along. This will be made clear by focusing on two case studies involving witchcraft violence.

An in-depth study is conducted into ten female-headed households in the township of Rini, an underprivileged section of Grahamstown in the Eastem Cape region of South Africa. The study provides information on the way in which such households function in conditions of poverty and underemployment. The meaning of the term 'household' is clearly defined. A household consists of a group of people, who may or may not be kin-related, but who usually live under the same roof, eat together and share resources. Household members may be absent for varying periods of time, but are still considered to have rights in the household to which they belong. The female-headed household usually contains a core of adult women who are often uterine kin. Men are frequently members of these households and are usually related to the women who form the core. Their status and roles in such households are defined and intra-household relations between household members are discussed. In this study, female headship is observed to occur in conditions of poverty when an elderly woman is widowed, receives a regular income in the form of and old age pension, and when her status as the senior member of the household is acknowledged. The presence of men in female-headed households has not been widely emphasised in other studies, either of the female-headed household itself, or in research done in this area of South Africa. An attempt is therefore made to illustrate the way in which men function in these households and the varying roles they play. An attempt is also made to describe other structures and practices which support the female-headed household in a rapidly changing urban environment. These include church membership, burial society membership, the informal economy, wider kinship networks and, in the case of the men, the rite of circumcision.