We continue our women’s month profiles and today we do that in this edition of the Knowledge Bank and look at a paper that reflects the difficulty of disentangling women’s political pasts from the dominant trends of the meta- narratives of women in liberation struggles on the continent. The study of the intellectual contributions of Charlotte Maxeke defines the demarcations that operated in the struggle for liberation in South Africa in the twentieth century and the formation of the black nationalist discourse.   In the paper we discover the layers of inequality, even as these are challenged and redefined. In this context, Maxeke performed a double edged theorization as an effect and a catalyst in the transition from traditional to modern African society. Lukhona Mnguni talks to the author Dr Thozama April about the paper.