Is South Africa’s post-apartheid commitment to gender rights incompatible with the recognition given to unelected hereditary authorities? Who makes decisions about land allocation and use in the overcrowded former ‘bantustans’ (ex-homelands)? What is the impact on female-headed households? Can the aborted move towards gender equity and land reform be put back on track? A paper ‘Gender, traditional authority and the politics of rural reform in South Africa’ by the Universities of Monash and Nottingham Trent shows the ways in which constitutional contradictions block progress on land reform in the black homelands where three-quarters of South Africa’s poor households are found.