Trapped workers: Constraints and contradictions experienced by black women in contemporary South Africa

Abstract

The situation of black and white women in South Africa presents a challenge to any oversimplified feminist notion of ‘sisterhood’. That challenge is sharpest in the institution of domestic service where the wages paid and the hours of work exacted by white ‘madams’ from their black ‘maids’ suggests a measure of oppression of women by women. The majority of African women in South Africa are still engaged in service and agricultural work, but even in other occupations their situation can best be described as ‘trapped workers’; workers with few alternatives, often living out an infinite series of daily frustrations, indignities and denials. This paper documents the framework of constraints within which black women are trapped. Many of them are engaged in a struggle for daily survival in which networks of women who share household and domestic labour (including child care) provide a crucial source of support. At the same time, the paper shows how African women are extending this daily struggle for survival onto the larger social terrain of collective action. It describes how they are attempting to win freedom and independence from both racial and patriarchal controls. This challenge is emerging from the trade unions where women are mobilising around issues of child care and maternity benefits. It is also emerging from community organisations and movements, such as the consumer boycott of white owned shops, which is one of the most significant political strategies to emerge from opposition struggles in recent years. Through an examination of such struggles the paper concludes that black women in South Africa will play a decisive role in the struggle for liberation.