1

Kip Padgett
"[Professor's Name]"
"[Class name and number]"
30 April 2015

African Womens Use of Methodism as Power in Southern Africa

There is a common portrayal of Christianity as a religion that restricted female independence

during colonization. However, this was not always the case, as African women used Christianity in an
effort to gain power and fight against social norms in numerous instances. One country, in particular,
where this occurred is South Africa. South African women's utilization of Christianity as power can be
seen with the Manyano movement. The theme that I see is that while the Manyano movement is a
religious movement, women used it as a tool to better their lives outside of the church. South African
women were not empowered by today's feminist standards, however they were empowered when put
into the context of the times in which they were living. They survived through the Manyano movement
and used it to their own benefit. Through looking at the Manyanos as feminists, feminism is being
looked at from a completely different angle. Being a feminist and supporting women's rights is not
always black and white. Women can have social roles in societies, such as during the colonial period,
where the women were seen as completely dependent on men. These women may appear to not be
doing anything about this, but appearance is not always reality. Though the Manyano movement has
been around for over 100 years and is seen all throughout South Africa, this paper will attempt to find
enough continuity in order to answer the central research question: How did the Manyano movement
help South African women achieve power in their daily lives? Ultimately, it will prove that South

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African women found political and domestic power through the Methodist Manyano meetings. Before
colonialism occurred in South Africa, women had power.
Before colonialism, indigenous women in South Africa had an important role in their
communities. These women had jobs where they were farmers, mothers, and spirit mediums. While
African women had independence before colonialism, "they were restricted by gendered taboos, and
silent in most public decision making."1 These women, however, were what bound South African
communities together, due to their performance of daily tasks which kept the household running. Thus,
these women were not dependent on men because they did their own labor, along with labor that
benefited their households. Ultimately, "self-sufficiency was an essential part of their identity and it
reinforced their sense of worth.2 Once colonialism occurred in the late 1800s, many colonizers saw
South African women as being broken and powerless, thus needing saving. This is due to the fact that
colonizers "misinterpreted African women's workload and relative autonomy as 'slave status'," and "saw
Christianity as their only hope.3 Colonizers attempted to save South African women by changing their
roles in society and making them dependent on men. Even after this, South African women still felt the
need to be self-sufficient and have an identity of their own. After colonialism, they found this identity
through the Methodist Manyano movement.
Colonialism brought about the Manyano movement. South African indigenous women viewed
one of colonialism's key components, Christianity, as a resource, and thus they attempted to combat
colonialism with it. The Manyano movement started in Natal around 1906, and its early name was

1 Barbara A. Moss, ""and The Bones Come Together": Women's Religious Expectations In," Journal of
Religious History 23, no. 1 (1999, February 1): 110.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid., 113.

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Kopano, which "is a Xhosa word which means unity or union.4 The Manyanos are part of a larger
Methodist society or church. The Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society or WMMS, who brought
Christianity to South African women, also brought new expectations about what constituted a woman's
place in society. The Manyano movement is part of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa, which is a
Wesleyan Methodist denomination. The Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society formed the ideas of the
first Manyanos, with the Manyano movement originally springing out as a Wesleyan Methodist Prayer
Union. Wesleyans taught that the women's role was to be obedient to men, with insubordination being
considered evil and disrespectful to God. At the Wesleyan mission, indigenous South African girls were
trained based on the Victorian ideals of domesticity and motherhood in order to prepare them for
domestic service in the households of colonists. This would ultimately prepare them for when the
majority of black South African women became domestic workers under apartheid. Even after South
African women were taught that they were inferior to men along with white women, "mission practices
reinforced African beliefs in divine intervention and women's spirituality.5 This is due to the Manyanos
combining Afro-centrism and Christianity. The Manyanos gradually minimized the European cultural
significance of Christianity and made it into something that was significant to them as Africans.
Essentially, "In the Manyano, over time, Christianity was de-Europeanized and given an African
personality.6 This new form of Christianity gave the Manyanos power in the domestic and political
spheres.

4 Sheila Lamar Elliott, "Women's Religious Associations And Social Change In South Africa: A Study
Of Methodist Women's Organizations," (PhD diss., University of South Carolina, 1996), 164, ProQuest
(9623075).
5 Moss, 115.
6 Elliott, 172.

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Along with bringing about the Manyano movement, colonialism also eventually brought about
apartheid. The reasons for apartheid "point to a combination of several factors colonial conquest, land
dispossession, economic impoverishment, and exclusion from citizenship of Africans."7 Colonialism
caused racial segregation, and this segregation was taken to an extreme level with apartheid. Mark
Sanders summarizes apartheid in the following manner:
No longer content to tolerate a de facto pattern of segregation in which 'grey'
areas of social mixing remained-such as in urban residential patterns and interracial personal contacts and relationships, including marriage-from 1948, the
new government set out to segregate every aspect of political, economic,
cultural, sporting and social life, using established legal antecedents where they
existed and creating them where they did not.8
Legislations brought about with apartheid increased the social construct of blacks as a servant class.
Along with this, many black South African women had children and families. Thus, many black South
Africans were domestic workers as well as mothers and wives. These women worked in white South
Africa's urban areas. Apartheid reduced these women to non-citizens that had to carry passes and travel
far distances in order to even enter these white neighborhoods where they worked. These houses where
domestic workers worked during apartheid were "characterized by terrible pay, oppressive working
conditions, and dehumanizing sexism and racism.9 Barely having any time to be home due to long
travel times and work hours, South African women needed tips on how to be the best mothers they could
7 Colonialism and Segregation: The Origins of Apartheid. Michigan State University. South Africa:
Overcoming Apartheid. Accessed March 31, 2015. http://overcomingapartheid.msu.edu/unit.php?id=6524E-2.
8 Mark Sanders, "Remembering Apartheid," Diacritics 32, no. 3/4 (2002, October 1): 68, JSTOR
(accessed April 1, 2015), http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/1566445?ref=no-xroute:9815e69fd49748e0922f9527b79e6660.

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be. Black workers' "domestic responsibilities forced them to concentrate on daily survival strategies."10
All of this caused black South African women to search for new ways of survival. South African
women used the Manyano movement to help their families survive the daily struggles caused by
apartheid. Having superior domestic abilities and a moral support system is one of the ways in which the
Manyano movement helped South African women survive.
After apartheid, the Manyano meetings gave South African women domestic power at a time
when they needed it most. In, The Rise of an African Middle Class: Colonial Zimbabwe, 1898-1965,
Michael West argues that Manyano meetings gave South African women who wanted to be domestic, an
opportunity to talk about how to be good wives and mothers. Manyano women started using the
Manyano meetings as a place to share tips on how to run households and take care of their families.
This is the way that the Manyano meetings helped black South African women. The meetings also
helped the women survive by encouraging them to have a positive mentality. As mentioned previously,
before colonialism, independence was an essential part of the African women's identity. The Manyanos
reclaimed their values as independent women due to the fact that motherhood played a central role in the
movement. The Manyano movement made motherhood a priority and ultimately gave it support in a
time when black South African women's positions as mothers were endangered. Shireen Ally
interviewed Sophia Ncobo, a 60-year-old domestic worker who said,
"I joined a long time ago, [the] Methodist manyano. It was a place for the women
who were married. I joined when things were very bad... we were all domestic
workers, and it was this place, where, in the time when you were there...you were
9 Shireen A. Ally, "'maid' With Rights: The Contradictory Citizenship Of Domestic Workers In Postapartheid South Africa."," (PhD diss., The University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2006), 1, ProQuest
(3245734).
10 Moss, 110.

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talking about your problems and how you must keep up the morals...the
manyano has always been like the heart in the body (translated from isiXhosa)."11
The Manyano meetings gave black South African women like Sophia moral and theological support.
The moral and theological support that the Manyano movement gave to South African women helped
them have more fight in them as they fought for the survival of their families, essentially giving them
domestic power.
South African women also used the Manyano movement and Christianity to gain political power.
The Manyano movement has commonly been viewed as conservative, and, consequently, has not been
appreciated as players in the feminist struggles in South Africa. This is due to the fact that they were not
necessarily fighting against the system during apartheid, along with the fact that they are a religious
organization. Though the Manyano movement is religious and was not actively fighting against
apartheid, they still had a political consciousness. This can be seen by looking at their refusal to
integrate with other organizations in their church. Within "the Methodist Church of the South Africa
Province there are three women's organizations: the Methodist Women's Manyano, composed of black
African women; the Methodist Women's Association, for coloured women; and the Methodist Women's
Auxiliary, for white women.12 The Manyano movement does not want to combine all of the
organizations for women. The reasoning goes back to the colonial period. Although colonizers wanted
to convert Africans, once indigenous Africans actually converted, their initiatives inside the Church were
often fought against or questioned. Along with this, the Manyano's views were ignored, all because they
were black women. Although the white foreign missionaries ignored their views, they still wanted the
Manyanos to be a part of white women's organizations so that the Manyanos would have supervision.
They felt they needed supervision because, "although African women championed Christianity,
11 Ally, 360.
12 Elliott, 162.

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missionaries found their assertiveness unexpected and disturbing.13 Despite being dominate and having
many members throughout its history, the Manyano movement has been on the edge of Methodist
church and political activity. The Manyanos refused to join white women's organizations. The
Manyanos chose to be racially segregated from the church because through "operating from their own
space they feel they are powerful and confident, transcending their allocated social inferiority when
dealing with the other groups in the Methodist Church." The Manyano movement, throughout its
history, has needed to be a safe and sacred space for black South African women, where they could be
themselves openly in a fashion that was truly meaningful. Thus, the Manyanos have maintained their
segregation. Along with giving them a sense of empowerment, the Manyano's choice to be segregated
also sends a political message. The movement's "rejection of shared space with coloured and especially
white women may also reflect a rejection of the system at large, a rejection based on class position and a
racial caste system supported by the apartheid.14 The white church has constantly tried to take the
Manyanos' private space away from them. This is symbolic of African space as a whole. The church has
continually tried to make them cooperate and has been, throughout its history, trying to make the
Manyanos embrace their way of living. For example, the white church throughout its history has tried to
make the Manyanos embrace the Europeanized Christianity that the Manyanos gave an African
personality. Ultimately, through their insistence on segregation, the black Manyano women, in a sense,
have turned racism on its head throughout their history by making the white church chase them and beg
them to assimilate. This is a reflection of the segregation South Africa has endured throughout its recent
history. The Manyanos actually are doing something politically, but they do not actively fight the
system. They do not need to protest, being segregated is their message. All of this is symbolized through
the Wesleyan church asking and sometimes forcing the Manyanos not to wear their uniforms. The
13 Moss, 109.
14 Elliott, 175.

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Manyanos have a signature uniform, which includes a white hat, red blouse and a black skirt. The
theological explanation of their uniform is "the white represents purity, the red represents the blood of
Jesus, and the black represents sin.15 However, the uniforms throughout the movement's history have
meant more than this to the Manyanos. They provide a sense of unity and a positive sense of identity.
Lyn Holness argues,
With my own eyes I have seen a person become somebody different the moment
she puts on her Manyano uniform. These women assume a dignity, a selfconfidence and a sense of pride. They move from being individuals with a sense
of either no, or at best second-rate, personal identity (a negative self-image) or
only derivative identity (Mrs. so-and-so's maid), to people with a positive identity
of their own." In addition to this, the Manyano uniform serves another vital
function; everyone looks the same. No one can detect who is rich and who is poor.
In other words, the Manyano uniform confers a common identity on its members.
It is a leveller - to the extent that "these women can, without shame, hide their
poverty in their official dress.16
Along with providing reassurance, the uniform is a symbol of the Manyanos "being different but not
inferior to the other movements in the church and not conforming to society."17 Europeans knew the
Manyano movement as the Red Blouse Movement. The women's Manyano church uniforms were
banned in places such as Johannesburg and Natal; however, Manyano women continued to wear them
anyway. Sheila Elliott argues that:
During interviews with the Manyano women of Guguletu in the Western Cape they
proudly told me that despite the civil unrest in the township, and threats by
comrades to stay indoors and out of their uniforms, they bravely continued to meet
15 Elliott, 175.
16 Lyn Holness, "Women's Piety And Empowerment: An Observer's Understanding Of The Methodist
Women's Manyano Movement," Journal of Theology for Southern Africa 98, (1997, January 01): 21-31,
accessed March 31, 2015, http://web.uct.ac.za/depts/ricsa/jtsa/j98/j98_holn.htm.
17 Ibid.

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and pray on Thursdays in full uniform. It is not that the leaders and members of the
Manyano do not see the problems confronting their people and especially their
children. They do, but the Manyano prays fervently for God's assistance and
deliverance from those evils.18
Manyano women's church uniforms became a representation of rebellion against colonizers and
apartheid. Still, "today, the wearing of church uniforms remains a key characteristic of the Manyano
movement.19 In short, instead of wanting to be accepted by the whites, the Manyanos did not accept
whites. They felt and acted as if they were superior to the whites, making a political message through
the Manyano movement along with their uniforms.
The Manyano movement eventually was seen all throughout South Africa and is still around
today. This is due to their perseverance and their strategies for survival. For a lot of South African
women, using the Manyano meetings as a way to get help on domesticity was one of their only options
for survival. They could not fight against the system very easily because many women struggled just to
keep their families going. The Manyano movement is a reflection of how African women put up with the
obstacles that were placed in front of them, with the introduction of apartheid and colonization.

18 Elliott, 178
19 Beverley Haddad, "The Manyano Movement In South Africa: Site Of Struggle, Survival, And
Resistance," Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity 61, no. Religion & Spirituality (2004,
January 1): 10, Jstor (accessed March 31, 2015), http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/4066591?ref=no-xroute:8b95ba4e205ce8f2f8d667198d341a40.

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WORKS CITED

Haddad, Beverley. "The Manyano Movement In South Africa: Site Of Struggle, Survival, And
Resistance." Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity. 61, no. Religion & Spirituality
(2004, January 1): 4-13. Jstor (accessed March 31, 2015). http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/
4066591?ref=no-x-route:8b95ba4e205ce8f2f8d667198d341a40.
Holness, Lyn. "Women's Piety And Empowerment: An Observer's Understanding Of The Methodist
Women's Manyano Movement." Journal of Theology for Southern Africa. 98, (1997, January
01): 21-31. Accessed March 31, 2015. http://web.uct.ac.za/depts/ricsa/jtsa/j98/j98_holn.htm.
Ally, Shireen A. "'Maid' with Rights: The Contradictory Citizenship of Domestic Workers in Postapartheid South Africa." ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, 2006, A-Z. Accessed March 31,
2015. doi:3245734.
Colonialism and Segregation: The Origins of Apartheid. Michigan State University. South Africa:
Overcoming Apartheid. Accessed March 31, 2015.
http://overcomingapartheid.msu.edu/unit.php?id=65-24E-2.
Elliott, Sheila Lamar. "Women's Religious Associations and Social Change in South Africa: A Study of
Methodist Women's Organizations." ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, 1996, A-Z. Accessed
March 31, 2015. doi:9623075.
Haddad, Beverley. "The Manyano Movement in South Africa: Site of Struggle, Survival, and
Resistance." Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity No. 61, no. Religion &
Spirituality (January 01, 2004): 4-13. Accessed March 31, 2015.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/4066591?ref=no-xroute:8b95ba4e205ce8f2f8d667198d341a40.

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Holness, Lyn. "Women's Piety and Empowerment: An Observer's Understanding of the Methodist
Women's Manyano Movement." Journal of Theology for Southern Africa 98 (July 1997): 2131. Accessed March 31, 2015. http://web.uct.ac.za/depts/ricsa/jtsa/j98/j98_holn.htm.
Moss, Barbara A. ""And the Bones Come Together": Womens Religious Expectations in
Southern Africa, C. 1900-1945." Journal of Religious History 23, no. 1 (February 1999): 108-27.
Sanders, Mark. "Remembering Apartheid." Diacritics 32, no. 3/4, Ethics (October 01, 2002): 60-80.
Accessed May 01, 2015. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/1566445?ref=no-xroute:9815e69fd49748e0922f9527b79e6660.
West, Michael O. The Rise of an African Middle Class: Colonial Zimbabwe, 1898-1965. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 2002.

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