i did not choose politics politics chose me she says it chose me because i was born of a poor african woman a domestic worker in the eastern cape province of south africa arrested tortured and imprisoned she suffered not because of my activism alone but because i dared as a women a black women to challenge the system the experience propelled her into a lifelong struggle for freedom from oppression including gender oppression but they could not deal with a female african species she reflects but going into exile for nearly two decades she encountered patriarchy within the liberation movement