A Decolonial African Feminist to Women's Political Participation in Zimbabwe

Abstract

The question of women’s political participation is loaded, and has in some aspects been articulated as a problem of representation, bringing about strategies such as proportional representation in the form of quotas. In Zimbabwe this electoral gender quota has been implemented through reserving seats for women in the Parliament. The dilemma with this conceptualization is that in Zimbabwe and other parts of the world, it has not necessarily improved the women’s status within the political arena, nor has it motivated agency in women. Following a decolonial African feminist framework, this research centers the voices and realities of Zimbabwean women as key informants in the understanding of the efficiency of the quota system and provides a scientific basis for reconstructing woman-centric solutions to the gendered imbalance prevalent in politics. The results of this study reveal inherent oversight in the approach characterizing quotas due to its failures to acknowledge the backgrounds informing the marginalization of women in politics. A thematic analysis of the results reveals that patriarchy and cis-male domination, culture and gender roles, locale, education, sexuality and gender identity as factors influencing women’s political participation in Zimbabwe. This calls for new forms of strategizing identified through a process of redefinition of African identities and refocusing on re-building communities in the spirit of Ubuntu.