International Journal of English and Literature (IJEL) ISSN 2249-6912 Vol. 3, Issue 3, Aug 2013, 127-136 TJPRC Pvt.

. Ltd.

A GENDERED APPROACH TO THE LAND REFORM PROGRAMME IN ZIMBABWEAN FICTION. AN ASSESSMENT OF EAMES' THE CRY OF THE GO AWAY BIRD BY, HOBA'S THE TREK AND STAUNTON'S (ED) WRITING STILL.
ISSN 22496939

HUNGWE ELDA

Lecturer, Department of English and Communication, Midlands State University, Gweru, Zimbabwe
Vol.2, Issue 2 (2012) 1-16

ABSTRACT
TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.,

The research takes a feminist approach in examining the gender disparities in the momentous era in Zimbabwes

history; the fast track land reform program. Zimbabwe had unequal land ownership patterns racially and in terms of gender and this had to be redressed. The research seeks to unravel the patriarchal attitudes towards women land ownership, the representations of women by male authors and the role played by women in their own emancipation. The researcher used the African feminist theory and the feminist political ecology theory in examining the womens identities in land reform discourse. The researcher used The Cry of The Go Away Bird by Andrea Eames, The Trek and Other Stories by Lawrence Hoba and Writing Still ed by Irene Staunton.

KEYWORDS: Land Reform, Gender, Patriarchy, Emancipation INTRODUCTION

The land question is the foundation of Zimbabwes political, economic and social growth. The magnitude of the land reform is that it retained a centrality in colonial conflict and it has been prioritized as a way of accomplishing ethnic and racial justice in land allocation. The arrival of European settler occupation of Zimbabwe in September 1890 saw the beginning of the land seizure. The systematic confiscation which was done largely through violence, war and legislative enactments led to the racially subjective land redistribution and ownership pattern that until the dawn of Jambanja(land invasion) was characteristic of Zimbabwe. The land apportionment act of 1930 divided the Zimbabwean land into 3 areas differentiated by tribal zones where there were, shona and Ndebele tribal trust lands and white communal areas. The apportionment act was problematic in that some families were moved from their ancestral land which they had held for generations and deported to the law rainfall areas and hence less food production. Dzingirai et al is of the view that, Owing to the colonial and post colonial strong and hierarchical segregation of access to land, the black minority found themselves in ecologically fragile communal areas while the white minority enjoyed the fruits of the better endowed lands. The Land reform can be divided into two periods from 1979 to 2000 where a principle of willing buyer willing seller was applied with economic help from Britain. Beginning in 2000; the fast track land reform also known as the Jambanja had began and it was targeted at altering the racial imbalance of land ownership trends that were in Zimbabwe. The fast track land reform came at a time when communal areas had almost reached breaking point in terms of carrying capacity due to increased population. The fast track resettlement program saw white owners being forced off the land and this happened brutally and with no recompense. This means that it not only documents aspects of reality; it also takes a personal, political and engaging stance to the world.

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In Zimbabwean fiction woman were not at the front row but they took the supportive roles, it is only men who were at the forefront of the resettlement program. Married women could not acquire land in their own capacity but got land through their husbands and hence the president of the Zimbabwe in Cheater and Gaidzanwa (1996) says that if women want land they should not get married. This i mplies that married woman only had access to land through their husband and if one is divorced then it also meant lose of land to him or her. The Representation of Women in Andrea Eames The Cry Of The Go Away Bird The cry of the go away bird was written by Andrea Eames and it is her debut album. The cry of the go away bird is set in Zimbabwe during the late 1990s and it also envelops the increasingly spontaneous political and economic state of affairs through the eyes of a young teenage girl. Women in the land reform discourse are portrayed as not violent like their male counterparts, they wanted to have access to land without aggressive land invasions. The narrator also blamed herself, her race for the sins of their great grandfathers; she says that, we were the ones who could not seem to get rid of our old ideas. Perhaps Mugabe was right, in some way. Elises mother who is white also agrees with the issues of land redistribution because she notes that, we did take it away from them and we need to gi ve it back if we are to move forward as a nation. (Page 209)She argues with her husband Steve, who does not believe in black people doing anything productive for he argues that,and give it to people who will grow five mealies for their families and export nothing. She however response saying that, not if people are trained properly I think this is a good thing. This goes to show that women in the land reform discourse were in support of land reform although they were advocating for peaceful invasions other than the violent invasions that took place instead. The roles of women in land reform discourse were gendered and in the sense that there were tasks which were subscribed to girls and others which were for the boys. For instance when the fast track land invasions were in full swing Mr Cooper told Steve to take Elise out of the country insisting that she is only a girl and Sean his son will stay because he is a boy and he must stay and fight, he persists that as a man he cannot run away whenever there is trouble but he has to learn to fight since he was going to be the owner of the farm one day. It can be noted that the gender socialization which stated the inferiority and weakness of woman as compared to man are not limited to race. Hooks (1981) in Freedman (2002) argues that racism also overshadowed any bonding between black woman and white woman on the basis of sex. The narrator who is a white girl tries to join a group of black women in order to socialize with them but they sent her away and she feels whiter than she thought she was. The struggles of woman against patriarchy should bring them together regardless of race because they have a single motive of emancipating themselves from male dominance but in this instance we find them drifting apart on the basis of race. Fanon (1967) however argues that race is not biological; it is not about being born white or black, but somewhat a historically constructed fact which is also culturally mediated. He further states that to speak anothers language is to exist for them and above all it is to assume a culture. The narrator spoke the language of the colonized and hence it is assuming a culture and hence Fanon says race is culturally maintained. It is important to note that the narrator and her mother do not have a farm but they work on a farm just as these women whom she recognizes as, the skinny old lady who worked at the clinicthe fat woman who worked next door also work at the farm. These two groups of woman are in the same situation and hence should fight the same battle as far as land acquisition is concerned since they are all land less people. Basing on Fanons ideology of race therefore, Elise and her mother should have been allocated land because they had assumed the culture of the black people through speaking their language.

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Womans access to land is blocked by prevalent social understandings and by fears for the integrity of society. Women need access to ways that will allay mens fears concerning social disintegration. Elise who is a white gi rl was in favour of the land reform program because she had black friends for instance Kurai and in a way she understood their plight as black people. She had also aspirations of becoming black in every sense. She notes that she had started wearing Oliver Mtukudzi vests and wooden jewelry and also because she has spent so much time in Zimbabwe, she had become Zimbabwean in every aspect. She argues that, I was a real Zimbabwean, despite my skin, and that I was not going to run away to a country that was not truly mine. Woman therefore should have benefited from the land reform regardless of skin colour because the narrator and her mother were born and bred in Zimbabwe and they did not have farm lands like what other male farmers had, they were only workers on a farm. This goes to show that the fast track land reform program discourse was merely constructed around issues o f race and economic efficiency, leaving those related to gender. Black woman in the land reform discourse are also represented as mother figures even to children of a different race. Elise shouts at her mother saying that Beauty who is black and their maid is her real mother. She identifies herself more with the black peoples traditions rather than the white peoples because her childhoo d could only be identified with her African ness rather than her whiteness. The concept of nationalism is exclusionary when it comes to national benefits like the land issues in terms of gender and race, woman are categories as the other whereas man are the self. During the land invasions, the black man had become the self the hierarchy followed the black woman, and the white man and woman where the others and in this instance they were not part of the land reform plan in terms of benefiting. Furthermore, it is vital to note that such women as maids and farm workers, because of their association with the white farmers as workers they will be prone to abuse in terms of land acquisition, they will not be allocated land because of this and hence the motives of the land reform should not have been merely political but should also have addressed gender issues these women were working for the white farmers as a means to an end, they were only seeking livelihoods and it had nothing to do with their political perspectives. The fast track land reform programme reduced opportunities for women to be empowered and shrunk the democratic spaces for genuine participation o f women in this development process by denying those rights to land and widening gender inequalities. Sachikonye (2002) observes that the failure o f the government to seriously consider womens' land question of ownership and control does not only reflect the indifference in masculinities to the gender land interference but also crisis in development and democracy whereby women continue to be victims. The protagonist suggests that beneath the skin and gender, people of all races bear the same emotions and attachments to land. In this encounter the multifaceted race relations with the land are depicted and it turns out the feelings for the land the black woman claims are the same feelings the white woman have. An analysis of the Societal Attitudes towards Women Land Ownership in Lawrence Hobas The Trek and other stories The Trek and other Stories focus on woman in the land reform discourse. The anthology is in three parts which are The first trek- the pioneer, the second trek going home and lastly the third trek- resettling. It is an anthology of the forcible eviction of white owned farmers by black people. The short story; The first trek the pioneers is a child narrative. This anthology is relevant in this discussion in that it brings out the representation of plight of women in land reform discourse. Woman owned property as single woman and widows and if one was married they could not be allocated land in their own capacity but through their husbands. When the character Baba acquires a farm, he does not include his wife in

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ownership but rather claims ownership as an individual. The narrator notes that there is a board which Baba takes to the farm which is written, Mr B.J. Magudu, Black Commercial Farmer, Farm 24 is crudely scribbled in white paint. I had never known baba wanted to be a commercial farmer. ..I think Baba should have written MRS instead of Mr, he never works in the fields. The farm will be mhamas to run. (Page 2) This goes to show that the inequality of women stems from colonialism because the males were emasculated when they were moved by the colonial system from the lands which their forefathers had held for generations and reclaiming the land was like a masculine regeneration. The child observes this when they were leaving their rural home going to their new home in the newly invaded farms. Baba writes his name as the owner of the farm on the board but he does not work on the farm. Women who are represented by the character mhamha do all the work and hence the credentials are all taken by man at the expense of the female. Men in the land reform discourse oppressed women physically. Osrim (2003) asserts that men are increasingly taking their frustrations on women, their partners. There is a strong belief that men should have total authority in the home and many men feel it is acceptable to hit women. This hold true in this anthology, the narrator says, Baba sits on the edge of the cart, brandishing a long leather whip he occasionally cracks to urge the cattle pulling the cart on. Sometimes when we are at home he uses it on mhama. (page1) Women are subjects to men, Reddy (2005) notes that out of fear and socialization women are forced to accept oppression as natural as they become silent. This goes to show that womens silence is imposed socially. Their thinking and self expressions are religiously and culturally sanctioned and as a result they become docile. Zimbabwe is a society that is hoe cultivating which is usually done small scale and usually done for consumption purposes and not for resale like the large commercial farms; women are the main farmers because they are the ones who were regularly left behind by their husbands to work as subsistence farmers at their rural areas while their husbands moved to cities in pursuit of jobs. In Shona customary marriage a man gains rights to a womans reproductive and productive labor throug h the payment of lobola (brideprice). Traditional customs therefore suppress women; men control most income and even the wages made through their wives agricultural labor. In the scotch cart which the family is using as a mode of transport to their new resettled home there are two hoes, babas is still new and clean and mhamas is worn from use. In this whole farming process baba thus uses his hoe to go and survey the work which has been done by mhama. This goes to show that women are capable of doing all kinds of work in the fields even without the help of man. Thus Hoba in The First Trek the pioneers contents that, A plough sits at the end of the scotch cart still looking new. Mhama bought it last year with money from her groundnuts. Though mhama always works hard, I prefer to play with Chido and Baba favors the calabash. Men owned land and women did not, however women were the ones who worked in these farms despite their lack of access to agricultural land. Women also worked on these farms productively, in this instance we find mhama buying a plough with the money she got from the groundnuts from the farm and was identified by nothing except wanting the calabash at the expense of production at the new farm. Campbell (2003) also notes that womens current position is the result of the historical fact that Zimbabwes transition from white colonial rule did not dismantle the structures of patriarchy or oppression which happened to save the

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regime which initiated the land reform program. This therefore highlights the fact that oppression of women still persist in the post colonial Africa. The black men were seeking some form of masculine regeneration through the land reform program. The emphasis Mr which is written by baba on the sign post to his farm which is juxtaposed by R W Whyte on the next farm stresses the quest of the black men in seeking his lost position during the colonial era. These farms and their posts are juxtaposed and its also symbolic as a juxtaposition of the African culture which e xcluded women in terms of property acquisition and the western culture which is inclusive of their female counterparts. The story Marias Independence brings out the role which was played by women in their own emancipation. Women also took part in the land reform process as individuals and not as accomplices of their male counterparts. Chimedza (1981) argues that a married woman has resettlement rights only through her husband; she is forced to leave the scheme if her husband is evicted even if she does not have a hand in the cause of the conviction. This story is therefore an advocacy of the womens land rights and it cannot be seen as simply a political project but rather as a profound challenge to a living cultural tradition that understands land as a key element of hegemonic masculinity and patriarchy. This implies that woman in Zimbabwean fast track land reform discourse fall under this same predicament because they were not given land as individuals which should have been the issue in addressing the gender disparities. There are places that were designated for women by the patriarchy and its certainly not in the resettled farms because man were the major players in land invasions, woman stayed in rural areas and claiming land was considered as a mans j obs and woman were left as mere spectators. This implies that the relationship between land and culture are profoundly about the construction and reconstruction of masculinity. Kesby (1999) goes on to argue that this form of masculinity requires womans di stance from the land as outsiders in patrilocal societies. The narrator says that, It was only when we were finally settled that someone said there was a beautiful woman in our midst this was no place for women so we gave her a few months to outlive th e euphoria of her and our new wealth. After that she would surely move out, for she, like Martin or me, had not lighted upon the large farmhouse, or the machinery. Wasnt that, after all, what she had hoped to acquire (Page 4) The above quotation also shows that women are depicted as bad people, people who are after free things and properties. There are also social constructs which deny women doing things on their own but rather degrade the integrity of the woman figure. Men believed that she was running away from a past that was haunting her joining the onslaught to which only men had rushed. Men diminish women and have negative perspectives on them. They see Maria as a spy, someone who represents the bad side of society because she came from the city, the place that continues to look towards the future of our ancestors enemy. She is however the opposite of their assumptions, she represents strong woman who goes against all odds thus the author says, she is more cunning than all your asses put together she is too much for a woman. These stereotypes have negative implication on womans development in that they deny woman a chance to defend themselves. These stereotypes leave no room for woman to prove that they can make it a world that is regarded as male dominated if only man can support them by including them in national activities that they should also benefit from like land reform. Women have been largely represented as weak, passive, submissive and dependent on man in fictional works. It is important to note that Maria however outshines most of the men because of her strong will to survive where men have given up. Everyone else had left the farm but Maria remained employing her own workers. Marias character therefore deconstructs the notions that have been set by society that women are dependent on men and without them they cannot make it. The story brings out the gender transformations in which woman were previously regarded as passive onlookers while men were at the core of the resettlement activities. At this point woman were now powerful more than man in owning land and managing their identities as female farmers.

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During the fast track land invasions, the black men in the story titled Specialization claimed that the, the farm and everything in it is now ours. We the sovereign sons of the soil. The word son refers to the patriarchy and hence the process was already excluding the woman but in the history of the nation there was also woman who died defending the sovereignty of the country. Denying woman access to land therefore meant that the matriarchal ancestors who died during the liberation struggle died in vain since their fellow woman cannot have the rights and same privileges that they fought for hand in hand with men. Apart from being an economic, political and spiritual basis of authority and influence, the land is where elder generation Zimbabweans have their umbilical cords hidden. As the naming ritual in Veras Nehanda sensationalize, Zimbabwean children are factually jointed with the soil. Tonde in Sorting it out spends so many years in the resettled farms but he has nothing to show for it. This story is a juxtaposition with the story Marias Independence because despite the patriarchal constructs which view man as the ideal sex Tonde failed to make it in the resettled farms but Maria a woman made it for she stayed employing her workers long after man had left. The resettlement farm even though it did not accord women land rights they also changed a persons behavior, the narrator says that, the farm had made mhama bad...Mhama has changed a lot. The head man tells them that they can no longer stay at the homestead that they used to stay because baba had said they were not coming back and he had sold the fields to someone else. According to Moyana (1984) the kings and chiefs saved as trustees of the land and the land could not be transferred or sold, it was inalienable, sacred and considered a natural gift that could not be owned by individuals. The customary laws gave power to the chiefs and headman because there were no title deeds to land which was in the reserves, the chiefs and headman where the custodians and for this reason the narrator and his family comes back from the resettled farms to be told by the heard man that their home has been allocated to someone else. The resettlement phase gave her a stand point and a voice in the male dominated society for she challenges the headman and tells him to leave her alone. She continues to stay at her homestead and the headman doesn t chase her after all. Mhama is able to stand up to baba thus challenging the male society and its beliefs. When baba comes back mhama has already tilled the fields and bought two cattle but baba comes back from his escapades with nothing. It is through the eyes of a male child that the narrator brings out the success of women and the failure of man in land reform discourse. The boy child observes that her mother manages to work and buy property when his father has nothing, man have to admit that woman are capable of making it in a male dominated society even where man have fail. It is only then that woman will begin to experience emancipation. The societal norms have to change also in order to make room for the woman who have worked hard and acquired properties without the assistance of man, when baba comes back to join them at home his mother shows baba the cows that she bought giving them to him as the owner and thus perpetuating male dominancy. Woman and mens relationship to agricultural land and crops a re fundamentally different and these differences have consequences on womans standard of living and survival. Crops should not be gendered but we find in the story Specialization that traditionally they are, mhama nina sowed the roundnuts and groundnu ts because these were a womans crops and I sawed the maize seeds.(Page 16) The Identities of Women in Land Reform Discourse as Depicted in Writing Still ed Irene Staunton Woman did not benefit much from the land reform process because most of them had access to land through their husbands and culturally land belonged to the patrilocal society; kings and chiefs who were also custodians of land were males and hence land redistribution was biased towards the males. This current discussion looks at how woman benefited from the land reform program and the short comings of the government in supporting the women who benefited because

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they had no resources to put their land into full use. Marxist feminists argue that in order to end the repression of women there must be a revolution to restructure all the possessions to society as a whole (Chinn & Wheeler 1985). The first story which the researcher will look at in the anthology is Maize and it is a story which was written by Memory Chirere. The story Maize (2003) is a fictionalization of the land Reform Programme as a program that has been profitable to the susceptible groups like women. In the course of this story, Chirere dramatizes the idea that regardless of the masculine autonomy that often characterized the programme, a number of women accomplished individual achievement. The author is insinuating that a fraction of the land imbalances was righted politically for the blacks had taken back their land and woman had also benefited from the fast track land reform and this meant that part of the gender imbalances were addressed and hence new social relationships have been created out of the redistribution exercise. However in the story, there is still a large piece of land that has not been cultivated, the woman does not have the resources the only farming implement that she has is a hoe. This shows that the redistribution exercise was done without corresponding support and apart from subsistence farming and the emotional attachment to land nothing much can come out from this farmer. Even though woman benefited some plots of land during the land reform program, the only farming implement that the woman possesses is a hoe with which to farm productively. This therefore means that, the redistribution of land, good as it was, was done without subsequent provisions to the newly resettled farmers. They had no competitive resources to use in their new-found land. This is why the greater part of the redistributed land still remains uncultivated. Besides the emotional attachment to the land, and aside from subsistence farming, nothing much can be expected from this farmer. In this regard the researcher observes that the men who were the driving forces behind the land reform program did not fully support woman and their acquisition for land but rather this looked like an act to prove a point that woman cannot do it without men. This shows the spontaneous and illogical nature of the programme such that one cannot but conclude that political motives were the driving forces behind the land reform. Womens access to land failed to guarantee them social, economic and political positions in that within society they were still subordinates of man because they depended on men economically, they were not yet independent commercial farmers because of lack of implementation. The men were their leaders politically and they were at the centre of the program and hence the women were kept at the peripheries. Women in the land resettlement discourse were stereotyped by their male counterparts as people who were not fit to be allocated land. The man says to the woman, you were given this portion? on your own? from this quotation one can see that man view women as people who should be depending on someone else preferably a man in order to be allocated land or they should have access to land through some other people. This woman however is strong and capable of doing great things in her farm because she built her own hut including doing the roofing herself which does not leek even when it rains. This shows that women have capabilities and they can exist as independent beings detached from men. Women are represented as people who are incapable of working alone. When the man comes to the woman, he parades his skills going down double rows, returning cutting across the rows in squares weeding the maize field in a manner that the woman despises. The author portrays the woman farmer who had been granted land as unable to cultivate it. The woman farmer is always alone on her farm tilling her fields with a single hoe. The way Chirere describes the woman farmers' incompetence in utilizing the land properly reflects how patriarchy represented by the author still cling to their old ideologies that woman

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should work and gain property under the guardianship of man . The woman has migrated from an unknown place, the author is only concerned about the womans experience whilst she is on the new farm she had been given. The fact that he ignores the woman's background suggests that the identity of women in the land reform discourse were not important because the man who passes through her homestead is said to be coming from Madziwa. The woman's identity is being questionable because her background is not mentioned in the story. Chirere is mainly concerned about attacking the womans essential identity as a new commercial farmer o f which she becomes a failure in maintaining this identity because we see that in the story she is described as using her single hoe in a very large commercial farm. In a sense male authors presented woman as people who cannot handle farming single handedly without a man and for this reason the male visitor comes to the womans farm to help her and also stay with her. Gendered identities were also transformed during the fast track land reform programme. The woman has been elevated in the society to become a farmer being given the same opportunities as men. She had been successfully granted land as a commercial farmer. This is however differing from the patriarchal norms where only men were considered as land owners. The author in this respect approves the governments initiative in empowering women. However the way she has been portrayed in the story shows inadequate representation o f women in the land reform discourse. Chirere depicts a woman character that is incompetent and the woman is not given a voice to defend her identity in the story. The story is in the third person narrative thus the woman farmer is always silent. The woman is also only identified as a woman farmer with no individual identity given. The womans performance in farming has not changed because she is ploughing a very small section which is explained like, a garden in the middle o f a jungle; however the failure o f the new farmers to maintain their new identities as commercial farmers was not their error. This farmer represents the unskilled and under resourced farmer which were allocated land country wide and this is political in that it represents food shortages in the country. In the story Maize there is substantiation that the woman farmer was failing to make the most of the land she had been given because she was unable to pay farm workers who would aid her in the farming because a commercial farmer cannot cultivate a farm as a single person and produce anything fruitful. The author is highlighting the predicament o f the resettled farmer particularly that of not having adequate machinery to use in the fields and as a result new farmers do farming for consumption purposes only and not for commercial purposes. The short story Universal Remedies is a gender conscious piece which presents womens emancipation in places which are subjugated by the patriarchal system, woman are viewed as people who are close to nature. The womens rapports turn out to be the milieu up on which the author introduces the masculine fast track land redistribution. Womens suffering under patriarchy does not exclude being left out from existing national programmes such as land redistribution. Esis obsession with the vegetable garden and tilling the land tallies with womans desire to fully have power over the land. By refusing Esi a role in the fast track land seizure, the author is suggesting that the patriarchal propensity of that movement has no room for the gentle hearted like Esi, who want to confront the patriarchy. The story imply that it is achievable to be healed and cleansed of patriarchy induced wounds through nurturing the soil, the author says that, she loved to garden, to feel the earth open before her, to plant her seeds and look after them as they grew. The two woman are left as sheer audience in the national creation of masculine irrational reallocations of land, a platform in which the main players are in fact men; in some cases they were both men and women but with a patriarchal plan. White farmers were evicted from their farms and for sometime Esi thought that possibly she might be able to get some land but the land was not given to the likes of her

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The stereotypes of woman by man are also brought out in the story by the farmer who is assisting the narrator in her crops. He says that, and by the way, the crop is clean too he added, pointing at the beans all around us. This is quite a surprise pardon what I mean This goes to show that man thought woman cannot succee d in the farming arena; however if given a chance, assistance and taught how to do things well woman can succeed just like man. The narrator also got virgin land which is good for any kind of crop; the white farmer says that, its a katondo deep, heavy, red soil that can grow any crop. You are lucky. This shows that the land reform was gendered to a certain extent because it also addressed the needs of the people especially it addressed the gender disparities in property ownership which were characteristic of post colonial Zimbabwe.

CONCLUSIONS
The argument highlighted the gender disparities that were within the fast track land reform program discourse, the societal attitudes towards woman land ownership in Zimbabwean fiction and also the role played by women in their own emancipation. It was noted that the fictional writers were writing about the politics of land reform and there were only a few traces of gender contemplations throughout the execution period. The involvement of women was basically restricted by the political temperament of the resettlement process. The narratives of the land rectification were masculine as a result women were pushed to the peripheries of the process and the authors also misrepresented woman in that they were presented as dependents of many in most instances. Women have been marginalised and male superiority is dominant in spite of policies and political promises. Finally, land reform in Zimbabwe has been primarily expressed in racial terms, it was not gender sensitive and for this cause the fictitious account of the land reform program became as controversial as the political necessities that were its key drivers. Gonye et al content that, the issue of citizenship includes all people who subscribe and are loyal to the entity called Zimbabwe. In light of this view however, white woman were not regarded as citizens and hence they were chased out of the country by the violence that was directed at every white person regardless of gender during the fast track land invasions.

REFERENCES
1. Campbell, H, (2003). Reclaiming Zimbabwe. The exhaustion of the Patriarchal mode of liberation, David Phillips and Trenton. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Chinn P and Wheeler C, (1985). Feminism and nursing. Nursing outlook 33: Eames, A (2013) T he Cry of the Go Away Bird. Random House. Hoba, L.(2009) The Trek and Other Stories. Weaver Press, Harare. Gaidzanwa, R.B. 1994. Womens land rights in Zimbabwe. Opinion, 22(2), 1216. Kesby,M (1999) locating and dislocating gender in rural Zimbabwe: the making of space and the texturing of bodies, place, gender and culture. 7. 8. Ngugi (1981) Writers in politics, a re-engagement with issues of literature and society. Sachikonye LM (2003) from growth with equity to fast track reform Zimbabwes land question review of political economy. 9. Staunton, I (ed) (2003) Writing Still. New Stories from Zimbabwe. Weaver Press, Harare.