Back to ContentsThe picture of women in work in South Africa is a changing one. Women constituted 33 per cent of the total workforce by 1980, as compared with 23 per cent in 1960, according to official figures for employment.1 But while the proportion of women in the workforce is increasing, and while there are shifts in the main sectors in which they work, the effects of the apartheid system are always present (see Tables VIII and IX).2
The main sectors in which women work are services (primarily as domestic servants), agriculture and, increasingly, manufacturing. (The official figures for the percentage of the female workforce in these three sectors were 40, 11 and 13 per cent respectively.)3 For black women, and in particular African women, who are the majority, domestic service and agriculture are the main sectors of work, followed by manufacturing industry. Professional work, mainly teaching and nursing, forms a smaller but significant sector4 (see Table VII).
A high proportion of those employed in occupations other than agriculture and domestic service are in jobs connected with the world of domestic needs; in food processing or canning works; in garment manufacturing and laundry, and among professional workers, in nursing and teaching.5 Service categories such as office and shop cleaning, laundry work, cooking, waitressing, tea and kitchen work, as well as messenger service absorb an extremely large number of women. Since the mid - 1970s women have moved rapidly into these service jobs. In 1973, 62,468 African women and 21,612 Coloured women were employed in these jobs. By 1981 the figures were, respectively,112,024 and 32,730.6
Official statistics are not accurate. The inadequacy of census figures is compounded by the fact that they cannot encompass women who are working illegally, nor do they include a significant number of women who work in what is called the informal sector - mostly selling small quantities of food and second - hand goods, and doing home sewing.
The number of women working illegally must be high. The difference between the number of men and women working as migrant labourers is stark. The total figure for migrants estimated in 1975 was 1.75m, of which 393,000 were foreign migrants. Of the balance, the figures show:
| From rural Bantustan areas | From other rural areas | |
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| Women |
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It is believed that the estimated figure of 1.75m amounts to only 80 per cent of the actual migrant workforce. Another 20 per cent of that workforce are illegal migrants. It is safe to assume that the largest proportion of the illegal migrants are women.7
Reprisals against those employing illegal workers were increased at the end of 1979 by the imposition of a fine of R500 on the employer. Domestic workers are most affected by this regulation. Whereas in the past an employer would be prepared to turn a blind eye to employing a domestic without the proper permits, a fine of R500 is too much when the employer is paying wages in the vicinity of R360 a year. Those women unable to register and unable to find an employer who will risk the fine, face being abruptly 'endorsed out'. Legislation recently put before Parliament would, if passed, increase the fine to R5,000.8
The difficulties of working illegally have been exacerbated partly by these harsher reprisals, and by the constant increase in control over the movements and the lives of all black workers; but also by a dramatic increase in unemployment in the South African economy, which appears to reflect a permanent change. Estimates of unemployment amongst Africans in 1980 ranged from one in four9 to one in three.10 South Africa is moving from labour - intensive to more capital - intensive production in both industry and agriculture; money is being invested in machines, and the effects on employment of changing labour processes and methods of production are worse for women than for men. As in other countries, the persistence of the ideology of home - based women conceals both their under - employment and their unemployment.11
Women fortunate enough to have legal employment are still confronted with discrimination of various kinds. In this chapter the situation of women, and this means principally African women, working in the main sectors of female employment is described - domestic service, agriculture, manufacturing industry and the professions. This is followed by a section on trends and patterns in the employment of women and in sexual discrimination. The section concludes with a brief look at the role of women in trade union organisation.
Agricultural work, whether as subsistence farmer or as casual or permanent employee, is one of the main forms of labour for women in South Africa, in particular African women.
Women have always been agriculturists in Africa, involved in subsistence agriculture since pre - colonial days, and responsible for most of the agricultural work.
Apartheid in South Africa has distorted traditional village life even more than the intrusion of colonialism in other parts of the continent. It has become impossible to subsist off the land.
Land hunger, the chronically non - arable state of the land, the absence of a large number of men during their economically active years (the men were responsible for the heavy work, hut - building, ploughing), the heavy taxation, the spiralling impoverishment - all these contribute to forcing women off the land in increasing numbers to seek work where they can on white - owned farms.12
Women, black and white, make up a quarter of the total full - time farm labourers on farms in the Western Cape. White women are mainly employed by the farmers in a clerical capacity. Coloured women have become full - time farm labourers on the Western Cape fruit and wine farms, replacing the traditional male labour force. On some farms there was in 1983 one man to 12 women. The Western Cape is representative of the whole country in this respect: according to government statistics published in 1984 a quarter of the people employed in the broad category of farm, forestry and fishing workers were women.13
Agriculture plays a major role in the economy and, with the exception of gold, this sector brings in more export earnings than any other.14 It is extremely dependent on hired African labour. Until a few years ago much of this took the form of labour tenancies. The tenants worked for the farmers for part of the year at abysmally low wages, but were able to keep a few livestock and cultivate a small plot of land.
The policy of forced removals coupled with changes in the methods of large - scale farming has been devastating for the labour tenant families as a whole, but particularly so for women. They are not only deprived of access to land, but also of the domestic employment on the farms that supplemented their living. The only skills these women possess are those related to agriculture or domestic service, often not available to them as a legal option because it is increasingly difficult for them toregister themselves. More and more farmers are enjoying the extra profitability of migrant, seasonal labour, obviating the necessity of providing housing and land for their workers. Women now constitute the majority of casual workers on farms, often travelling long distances in order to work.15
To qualify as migrant workers in 'white' areas, women must register at the local labour bureau; and if, as frequently happens, they are classified as farm workers they will remain so for the rest of their lives, making it impossible for them to find other, better paid employment.
Farm workers in the Transvaal, faces protected against a cold wind.
Photograph John Seymour
Farm labourers receive extremely low wages. A government survey in 1981 reported an average wage of R25 to R35 in most regions. As in other categories, women are paid lower wages than men. Farmers often prefer to hire women for this reason, and also because they often have to bring with them their children for whom there is no alternative child care, providing the farmer with extra unpaid labour. Because of their inability to get legal work, women are still more susceptible to illegal and low-paid employment.16
The wages here at van Heerden's are R20 a month. We have a few cattle that we have raised. But we are not allowed to raise many. Also we are no longer allowed fields. They used to agree. Now? No, no, no. They refused to let us plough but they don't give money. It would be all alright if they gave us a big place to plough and allowed us to have many cattle. Then this R20 of theirs would be alright. Because you would have some maize and some beans, you could sell some. But no, they don't want us to have more than 10 cows.
The whites have money, they have it. Really and truly, they have lots. And what can we buy? Nothing. They will never, never, never change. We must all get a little strength. All people must have something. If people have no children in Jo'burg what will they eat? We can just die, it's because of this that some of the children swell up and die from hunger. This R20 of theirs is ridiculous. They must know how much sugar costs. There is the same price for everyone who goes to the shop, poor people don't pay less.
We have always suffered on the farms but things were better before. Our parents worked that system of six months without a cent. But they ploughed and they got mealies. Now they have changed. They changed about three years ago. 'The thing of six months is finished. Instead we shall pay money.' Pay how much? Ten rand ! If our children go for better work in Jo'burg they will fire us from here. We will have to go to the reserves. That place is terrible, terrible, full and full of stones. Jesus, there is famine there.
I was born on a farm near here. At that place we earned nothing. Yes, and now we are old what will we get? Those boers who used us for free, what will they do for us now that we are old? Nothing.
(A woman speaking in 1982 about life in a white - owned farming area in the Eastern Transvaal - Africa Perspective No. 22, 1983)
Farm workers, like those in domestic service, are not protected by industrial legislation. They lack social security benefits, and they lack bargaining power. The level of wages and the length of the working day are uncontrolled. A study of farm labour in 1982 found that the average hours of work were approximately 60 hours a week spread over 51/2 days. Most workers appeared to work a 12 - hour day including breaks for meals. But in summer the hours of work sometimes reached 17 hours a day.17
Domestic service is the largest area of paid employment for women in South Africa. A quarter of all employed women in 1980 were domestic servants, according to the official census nearly three - quarters of a million women. Of these women almost all were black and the bulk (86 per cent) were African.18
Domestic workers, states Jacklyn Cock in Maids and Madams,19 are situated at the convergence of three lines along which social inequality is generated: sex, class and racial division. Nowhere else is it possible to find such clear examples of how the racial and sexual factors facilitate and intensify exploitation. The extreme exploitability of women is personified in the domestic servant.
The ideology of a 'woman's place' identifies the domestic sphere of wives and mothers as the 'natural' place for women, and their primary occupation, even if they have other work outside the home. Married women are to be regarded as dependants of their husbands even when economic circumstances have changed the way society operates. Children are identified by the husband's surname, and without it they are 'illegitimate'.
The black domestic servant fulfils the classic female functions of housewife, cook, cleaner, nursemaid, but not in her own home, for the advantage of her husband, or her own children. She cannot even claim the satisfaction of creating a centre of family love and care like housewives in other countries. It is the furthest to which the false concept of 'family' can go, and it is done within the context of the extreme exploitation of black women.
Domestic service is an important part of the economic and racial structures of South African society. Black women perform their roles on two levels, and in a double sense. They remain responsible for the domestic functions within their own households, and at the same time perform these functions within white households. The domestic responsibilities of white women become the responsibilities of the subordinate black women.
Black mothers rear surrogate children. They are separated from their own by the laws of apartheid, while white children have both white and black mothers.
Together with certain other categories (such as agricultural workers) domestic workers are excluded from such protective legislation as does exist.
The Labour Relations Act allows for some organised consultation with employers, but specifically excludes farm workers and domestic workers in private households. The Industrial Conciliation Act, governing relations between employers and employees, wage agreements and conditions, does not apply to domestic workers. Nor does the Wages Act, which recommends minimum wages for various categories.
The Unemployment Insurance Act excludes domestic workers, as well as home workers who are employed for less than one day a week.
The Workmen's Compensation Act excludes domestic workers and casual employees from reimbursement for injury or disease.
None of these acts is particularly effective in championing workers' rights, but the important fact is that the excluded categories are regarded as being marginal to the labour force and have no recourse whatsoever to a limited form of protection.
Many domestic servants live on their employers' premises, another indication that conventional family life is for whites only.
Jacklyn Cock undertook a study of 175 domestic servants and 50 employers in 1978 in an area near Grahamstown in the eastern Cape. The sample is a small one, but the author states that there is no reason to suppose it is unrepresentative.
Almost three-quarters of the full-time domestics earned below R30 a month. The average wage was R22.77. The wages are among the lowest of any in South Africa. The highest wage was R60, earned by only one worker. In 1984 wages for domestic workers in Cape Town were reported as being often between R80 and R125 per month. A meeting of the South African Domestic Workers was told in 1984 that some domestic workers in the Orange Free State were being paid as little as R20 per month.20
Of the women in Jacklyn Cock's study 99.9 per cent of domestic workers worked more than a 48 - hour week; seven workers in the survey worked more than 80 hours.21 Almost a third worked a seven-day week; having a day off per week was considered a highly-prized advantage in a job.22 One mother of three small children was able to visit them once a month on her day off.
Not only did domestic workers work far longer hours than other workers, but they also received less paid leave.23 The majority had to work on public holidays; a considerable number had no annual holiday. Thirty-four per cent were given one week's holiday a year or less. Less than one-third spent the whole of Christmas day with their families.
All the workers had children. In over half the sample the domestic worker was the sole breadwinner and support for her family.24 Of the 78 per cent who had been married, only 48 per cent were still married, the others having been widowed, divorced or deserted. The deprivation of family life is severe, and the conditions of life of the domestic worker are an important factor in marriage breakdown. Women who are 'living - in' may not have their husbands stay over even for one night, although the room occupied by the domestic is either separated from the house, or if attached, has a separate entrance. Those who do so illegally run the risk of being caught in police raids on servants' quarters. Even in situations where both husband and wife are domestic workers within the same area, and their respective employers are agreeable, it is against the law for the couple to live together. There are no extenuating circumstances, and the vicious operation of the system is illustrated by this letter written by an employer to a newspaper describing a visit of two policemen to a private house:
The reason for their visit . . . was that we were accommodating an additional African, the maid's three - year old boy, without a licence. The maid explained that the boy normally spent the day with friends while she was at work, but for two days while they were away, she had been forced to bring him with her. He had not slept on the premises and would return each night to the location. This was apparently not legally permitted without the boy having a licence to be with his mother. Under these circumstances my maid was duly fined R10.25
To ensure that employers did not close their eyes to the illegal spouse in the back room, a government proclamation made the employer subject to conviction and fine, as well as the employee, should a domestic worker's husband or children be found with her overnight.
Over 50 per cent of the full - time domestic workers in Jacklyn Cock's study began work between 6.00 and 7.00 a.m., a further 43 per cent beginning between 8.00 and 9.00 a.m. Fifty - two per cent stopped work after 5.00 p.m., with close on 20 per cent stopping work after 9.00 p.m. This did not include those nights when the employer entertained. The average work - week was 61 hours.
The long hours make any social life virtually impossible. The women interviewed keenly felt their low status and the image most frequently used to describe their situation was that of slaves - amakhoboka.
They are trapped in a condition of subjugation and immobility within which they are subject to intensive exploitation.
The domestic worker does not endorse her subordination but she recognises her powerlessness. In the work place, the disparity in income and lifestyle between worker and employer is highly visible. Black women employed as domestic servants experience apartheid in a peculiarly humiliating way. A black woman looking after a white child at the seaside may take off her shoes and enter the sea to care for the little one, but she is prohibited from bathing there herself. Black women may take their small charges upstairs on the whites' buses, but may not travel on those same buses if not accompanying a white child.
A major part of domestic work in South Africa is washing and ironing, both for full - time servants and for part - time washerwomen. The washerwoman is creating for her employers that 'ideal' domestic environment demanded by whites; the immaculately washed, pressed and folded clothes. In the house, the domestic servant lives daily with a multiplicity of expensive consumer items - furniture, clothes, carpets, electrical appliances, and with the large - scale purchase of food and materials; yet all these must be disassociated in her own mind from any conception of her own needs in her own home. After a day of standing at the ironing board, or fulfilling the multiple functions of a home - maker, she may take her swollen feet to her backyard room, or to the crowded township. But the pleasant home she has helped create belongs to someone else.
White children and many black children learn their places in the structures of apartheid society through the institution of domestic service. White children assimilate racial attitudes through their parents' treatment of black servants - an example constantly demonstrated within the home from babyhood.
For black children, the lessons are different. Lilian Ngoyi, who became president of the Federation of South African Women, described how she was haunted by the memory of going to deliver washing for her mother to a white family, who refused to let her and her baby brother into the house: 'Why should an African child not get into this woman's house, and there is a dog in the house?'
White Women at Home
Black women relieve white women of the monotony and responsibility of domestic work, freeing them to pursue other interests. White women can enrich their lives, economically or socially. They may enter wage employment (34 per cent) mainly as skilled and service workers in commerce and industry. They earn salaries many times as high as that paid to their domestic staff, enabling them to expand their role as consumers.
Most white women in South Africa lead expansive social lives. They are freed from the isolation that marks the mother of young children in the nuclear family of the Western world. They play a lot of sport - bridge, tennis, golf, bowls, swimming. They have many hobbies, largely centring around home and garden, and they entertain frequently. Visitors to South Africa always comment on the free - flowing hospitality they receive, rarely thinking that this is only made possible through the exploitation, economically and socially, of black labour.
But many are unable to utilise their freedom constructively and dissipate it in a round of trivial social activities. After parturition many seem to become redundant, childbirth being the one duty they cannot delegate to the black women. They are not essential for the smooth running of their homes; they delegate the care of their children to the black 'nanny'; and their role as consumer and display of their husbands' wealth become pivotal. The size, grandeur and decoration of shopping centres in the suburbs of large cities bear testimony to this. Many white women, writes Jacklyn Cock, are the victims of a peculiarly dehumanising type of sexual domination.
The notion of female inferiority and dependence has been deeply internalised by many women. This 'cultural colonisation' renders them open to manipulation in a variety of ways. In the sexist stereotype femininity implies a high level of concern with personal adornment. This is manipulated by the advertising industry to promote endless consumption.26
Cock goes on to state that attributes of femininity - helplessness and delicacy - can only apply to a comparatively small number of women resting on the 'unladylike' activity of others. Olive Schreiner termed this 'the phenomenon of female parasitism':
Behind the phenomenon of female parasitism has always lain another and yet larger social phenomenon; it has invariably been preceded . . . by the subjugation of large bodies of other human creatures . . . Without slaves or subject classes to perform the crude, physical labours of life and produce superfluous wealth, the parasitism of the female would in the past have been an impossibility.27
But some of the freedom from children and home is now being harnessed to combat the threat, increasingly posed as the liberation struggle gathers momentum, on this whole way of life. Already many white housewives are being trained in handling weapons and in concepts of civil defence.
Domestic Workers' Self Image
Viewed from outside, domestic workers appear to be deferential as well as completely powerless. Yet despite their isolation, their work conditions are a form of education; their deference is superficial, a way of coping with their situation, and conceals their true feelings. They have strong perceptions of themselves as women. Only a small proportion of Cock's sample, 16 per cent, thought that women are generally inferior to men in their personal qualities. Many seemed to have a sense of personal superiority to men. The examples cited by Cock include these: 'We are the same, the problem is that we are women. Otherwise I have more power than my husband. Once he gets into difficulties at home, he gives up.' 'We are more capable than men. Men can't face problems. They think it's the end of the world.' 'We are equal but my husband couldn't manage without me.'28
Many of those interviewed expressed deep resentment against their wages and their treatment. Cock states:
Compared to their white, mainly middle - class employers, these women have a much greater 'feminist consciousness' or insight into discriminations against women. The widespread disruption of family life that the system of migrant labour entails, has resulted in the burden of family responsibilities being placed upon black women. Their sense of grievance against what they see as black men's irresponsibility, particularly their drinking habits and secrecy about their incomes, came through very strongly. But their indignation about discrimination against women is clearly overshadowed by their consciousness of discrimination against blacks.29
Organisation
In a situation where each worker is isolated, each having to deal separately with a different employer, organisation is a formidable task. However, attempts have been made since 1960, with varying success, to form a domestic workers' union. In 1970, with the assistance of the South African Institute of Race Relations, Domestic Workers and Employers Project (DWEP) was formed. Its chief focus seemed to be organising what were called Centres of Concern where domestics came together on a social basis, and to learn skills. The Domestic Workers Project (DWP) was established by the South African Council of Churches in 1974, expressing the concern that church bodies felt towards the plight of domestics. The South African Domestic Workers Association (SADWA) was launched at the beginning of 1981 as a joint project of the Institute of Race Relations and DWEP. It aims to protect the domestic worker against exploitation, hardship and abuse from employers and officials of the state; to become the mouthpiece of domestics, negotiate with employers and run a complaints office. While the concern of some white women, expressed through their association with the Race Relations Institute and the church organisations, is recognised and appreciated, some black leaders feel the organisations tend to rob the workers of real trade union militancy. The Domestic Workers' Association, representing the majority of black domestics in Cape Town has fought against further legal restrictions on domestic workers.30
The restrictive laws and practices of apartheid have inhibited movement of black women into industry. The development of secondary industry coincided with the decline in rural output, and these growing industries were increasingly absorbing female labour. In the 1930s and 1940s, however, it was young white women from poor rural Afrikaans homes who came to the towns to service these growing industries, and until 1936 the female workforce in these industries was predominantly white. But the situation was transformed between 1939 and 1946.31
As manufacturing industry made even greater strides in the post - war period there was an increased demand for African female labour, which was by far the cheapest. The contradictions within the apartheid framework remained, but for a growing economy African women provided an ideal labour force: women are employed as unskilled labour at the lowest level of production; the wage gap between men and women is as high as 20 per cent, a guarantee of maximum profits; women form a large part of the (industrial) 'reserve army of labour'. Because they form the largest group of unemployed, they are readily available whenever needed in times of expansion, and can be as easily dismissed in times of recession.
The argument that women are paid less than men because they are not the heads of families, and are simply supplementing the family income, does not stand up to scrutiny. In Soweto alone Ellen Hellman estimated in 1971 that one - fifth of the households were female - headed.32
Women's legal dependence combined with the impoverishment of the rural areas, migrant labour, and the refusal to recognise African family units all combine to create among African women workers a state of impermanence and insecurity.
African women are paid dismally low wages. In a study carried out by the University of Port Elizabeth in 1982 the average weekly wage of women employed in manufacturing industry was found to be R38, less than half of the absolute minimum required by an average family.33
Despite all these restrictions, the extent to which black women are being drawn into employment is one of the most conspicuous features of recent years and the composition of the workforce has undergone steady and continuous change. In 1946, African women were a mere one per cent of the total labour force in manufacturing. By 1950 it was 2.5 per cent, and seven per cent by 1970: by 1979, when women as a whole constituted over 40 per cent of the economically active population (as this is officially defined), African women made up over 20 per cent of the economically active population.34 Between 1973 and 1981 the percentage of women in the total black workforce (according to official statistics) increased by 7.8 per cent to 22.3 per cent..35 During the 1960s white women tended to move out of the factories into service occupations such as clerical and secretarial work. African women who were fortunate enough to have relatively secure residential status in the towns began fulfilling the demand for industrial workers, replacing white women in a number of secondary industries, mainly in food, beverages, clothing, textiles and footwear.
Women in industry are concentrated in those sectors related to the concept of 'women's work'. The clothing, textile and food industries together employed 73.1 per cent of all African female production workers in 1970.36 They are often labour - intensive and for this reason have become targets of government policy to remove them to 'border' areas, or to areas just outside the bantustans ('growth points' is the official term) where there are many unemployed women available, and conditions allow even lower wages than in existing industrial areas (see below).
Minimum wage differentiation on the grounds of sex has technically been outlawed but women are generally employed in less well - paid jobs than men. Both the 1956 Industrial Conciliation Act and the 1957 Wage Act endorsed discrimination along sex lines. The Industrial Relations Act of 1982, which is seen as abolishing wage discrimination along sex lines, has done very little to change the situation for African women. The act merely regulates the minimum wages paid to workers, but does not abolish sexual discrimination in practice. Women perform different jobs to men and therefore it can be claimed that they are deserving of different pay.37
The working conditions of women in industry are frequently very poor. Because women are employed in labour - intensive sectors, the work is very strenuous. They often have to stand for long hours, only breaking for the lunch hour. Their time is so tightly regulated that a timekeeper may be employed to check on the time they report in and the time spent in toilets.
Employment in industry often means that a woman has to give up her right to have children.38 In the Industrial Council agreement covering sick leave, no provision is made for maternity leave for female workers who become pregnant, nor special sick leave in the case of pregnant women who suffer miscarriage.39
The majority of African women workers are forced to work until the final stages of pregnancy, and undoubtedly many resort to backstreet abortions for fear of losing their jobs. Women in industry have no maternity benefits. The law lays down that a woman be allowed 12 weeks' maternity leave but does not require the employers to keep the job open for women to return after the birth of a child. With unemployment on the increase, such women are very rarely re - employed. If, on the other hand, they are taken back, then their maternity leave is taken as broken service and they suffer a drop in salary. A fair proportion of illegal abortions among blacks are carried out by women who fear that their pregnancy will result in the loss of a job. In some extreme cases, women have opted for sterilisation in order to keep their jobs.40
On the fringes of the bantustans lie border industries, sited either just inside the Bantustan perimeter, or close enough to the Bantustan to draw labour from it. They are planned as part of the process of keeping Africans out of the 'white' areas while at the same time making the maximum use of the cheapest labour available.
As Prime Minister in 1965, Dr Verwoerd stated: 'White factories on the perimeter of reserved African areas would make full use of tribal African workers, who would thus be absorbed there in the service of white people.41
Industrialists establishing themselves in these areas were offered several inducements, including free removal transportation; financial assistance; a remission of taxes within the first four years; and exemption from some of the provisions of the industrial labour laws - for example, the minimum wage determinations.
Industry was slow to respond to these inducements, and the regime put pressure on light industry to move; and in some instances, large industrial complexes were simply designated to be in border areas, while the neighbouring African townships, established within the urban areas, were reclassified as falling within the Bantustan.
The majority of border industries employ women. The wages are not only lower than those that men would get in the same jobs, but lower than those paid in other industrial centres.
The wages are so low that they have in some cases attracted adverse press comment. The area of Babelegi, north of Pretoria and just inside the Boputhatswana Bantustan, is the site of a group of such industries. One factory, Kool Look Wigs, with 600 workers, mostly women, paid a basic wage of R4 a week in 1974, an average wage of R6 a week, with no pension fund, no medical assistance, transport or paid sick leave. Four years later when four more Babelegi industries were investigated (three clothing factories and one making tents), it was found that workers were receiving a wage of R6 a week.42 In 1981, Grassroots newspaper revealed that the Frame Group near Durban was employing female migrants from the Transkei because they were willing to accept lower wages than women in the Bantustan townships serving Durban. The women were housed in terrible conditions in single - sex hostels and they were required to sleep two to a bed.43
Border industries have encouraged the growth of a fringe of sprawling urban slums. They are not towns in any normal sense, as they lack the infrastructural and cultural amenities associated with city life. Moreover, they lack economic viability on their own. They are nothing more than dormitory towns for the border industries, or for commuters who travel further across the border, daily or weekly, or on a longer - term basis. Some workers may travel up to five hours a day - they are lucky to have the work. They are towns in limbo, no longer the responsibility of 'white' South Africa.44
There are matters about which it is almost impossible to obtain statistics, and where only rough estimates can be made.
It is not known how many people are deemed by the government to be 'illegally' outside the bantustans. An indication can be gleaned from the fact that, according to the government, 15 per cent of Africans in the Cape Peninsula in 1983 were there 'illegally'.45
Who are 'illegals'? They are Africans who do not qualify for urban residence under the pass laws, or who for some reason do not possess the correct documents; who have entered the area illegally; or who are under contract to work on the farms - and therefore not permitted to accept work in any other category.
Since the embargo, imposed in 1969, on women leaving the bantustans except as contract workers, an increasing number of women have been forced by the poverty in the bantustans and the very few opportunities to find work where they live, to become 'illegals'. These women are open to extreme forms of exploitation. Employers are often ready to take advantage of their vulnerable position, especially those women in domestic service.
With the growth of unemployment, women seek survival in what is called the 'informal sector'. This is petty commodity production or trading, involving a wide range of economic activities by which some sort of living is scraped together. By the very nature of the work, the number of people in this sector falls beyond the scope of statistical surveys. With the unemployment crisis in South Africa increasing attention is now being paid to the informal sector which is being brought under stringent control by the authorities.
Beer - brewing and the selling of vegetables are the most common informal occupations among women. With the sale of 'intoxicating liquors' to all Africans prohibited up to 1977, as well as their introduction into the townships, the brewing of beer became a source of sharp conflict between women and local authorities (see Part IV).
Over the years the state has made enormous profits from the sale of beer in the state - owned beerhalls. One journalist estimated in 1982 that in the Eastern Cape 'Border' area alone the state sold 50,500 litres of beer a day.46 Administration Boards (known since 1984 as Development Boards) have been financially heavily dependent on beer profits - a mug of beer contributes towards oppressive control.47
Shebeens - illicit liquor 'dens' - became a major part of social life in the townships, and the shebeen queens who ran them were often powerful and commanding women. Although the shebeens were frequently raided, many of the queens had their own arrangements with the police.
In 1980, as part of the much - vaunted 'change in South Africa', the regime decided to legalise shebeens. To operate legally a shebeen owner must have a business licence, the fee for which is R600 a year; and the shebeens should be in owned, not rented, property. Quite clearly these terms eliminate the overwhelming majority of shebeen owners, most of whom will not be able to qualify, and a considerable number of whom do not have Section 10 rights (see Appendix), and cannot, therefore, even apply. 'Attempts by the state to control the liquor selling business in areas like Soweto then become part of the strategy to co - opt a black middle class at the same time as ensuring that all those whose stake in the system is limited, are wiped out.48
For women who make a living from selling fruit and vegetables, the situation is only marginally better. Although hawking is not illegal, the authorities have laid down such stringent regulations that few hawkers can comply with them. Hawkers must register with a local authority; must own an approved storeroom; and must move their location not less than a hundred yards at the end of every hour.
Here again, because most women in the informal sector are classifiable as 'illegals', they cannot risk registering with the local authority - that would mean instant expulsion to a Bantustan. And moving a stall every hour is another impossible condition.
Women also seek to supplement their incomes in ways connected with domesticity by taking in washing; doing home sewing, mending or making garments; by preparing and selling cooked foods.
The position of women in the ranks of professional workers reflects the status of women in South Africa, across the whole spectrum of colour.
Statistics can be misleading. According to the official figures, in 1980 97,300 African women were classified as 'professionals' and only 79,880 men. In fact the African professional men are mainly teachers, and the overwhelming number of black women in the professions are teachers or nurses.49
At the university level, only one - third of African students in 1983 were women.50
Few of the women in teaching and nursing have the benefit of a higher education.
The high proportion of women teachers is the result of deliberate official policy: 'in order to save money in teacher training and salaries, and also because women are generally better than men in handling small children', stated Dr Verwoerd in 1963.51 As in all areas of work, women are paid less than men. In 1984 the government introduced new regulations to remove pay discrimination against all women teachers except African women teachers.52
The training of nurses could not be subject to the same cuts as that of teachers. Nursing has attracted both white and black women; while the number of nurses doubled between 1946 and 1980 the number of African nurses increased from 3,013 to 21,318.53 A situation arose in which African nurses were receiving better training than their white counterparts, who were mainly young Afrikaner women. This was at a time when many Africans were still able to receive their preliminary education in mission schools, some with relatively high educational standards, while large numbers of the Afrikaner nurses were receiving a narrow and less competent training from Calvinist institutions in the countryside. Black women were doing better in competitive state examinations, and began to express their resentment against perpetual tutelage by less qualified whites. To protect the white nurses, the Nursing Act of 1957 was passed, prohibiting the employment of black nurses in positions of authority over white nurses.
African nurses and teachers experience immeasurably more taxing conditions of work than their white counterparts, according to Lapchick and Urdang.54 There are major differences between the facilities provided and what is possible in terms of achievement. For Africans this gap widens once more when rural and urban conditions are compared. Teachers have few facilities and equipment to ease and assist the teaching process. The schools are bare and overcrowded, the writing materials expensive and therefore limited. Their pupils are tired and undernourished. In contrast white schools enjoy the highest standard of equipment and teaching aids, as well as large playing fields and other amenities. African nurses on the other hand have to battle with illnesses that do not affect the white community, including malnutritional diseases and others aggravated by the conditions of poverty that result from apartheid.
The official Nursing Council was, until 1979, exclusively white. But although black nurses are now represented on it, the majority of the Council remains in white control, and according to black nurses acts to control and discipline them rather than represent their interests.55
Among white women a picture prevails that will be familiar to women in many countries of the world. Although they have access to higher education, they are always found on the lower levels of the professions. White males have twice as many Bachelors' degrees, five times as many Masters' degrees and five times as many doctorates as white women, according to 1982 official statistics.56
Among white teachers, 65 per cent are women, but women are only 18 per cent of the Inspectors of Education. They are under - represented in important professions. Although white women represent a large percentage of the workforce, they are poorly represented in management: in 1980 only ten per cent of management and senior administrative positions were occupied by women.57
A very small number of black women are finding that the changing economic scene is opening gaps for professionally trained women. In recent years some black women of great ability and persistence have succeeded in reaching professional status in various careers; their achievements are exceptional enough to become newspaper stories. The first Coloured woman to become an attorney in the Transvaal was reported in November of 1981. It was 'after a long fight', for attorneys refused to article her. In the 1980s the first black woman to register as a clinical psychologist was reported, and also the breakthrough of another African woman who became a town planner with the West Rand Administration Board.
'They are self - disciplined, independent and hard - working', stated Truida Brekel of the University of South Africa, whose research shows black women entering the professions, industry and white - collar jobs at a faster rate than white women or black men.58 Their numbers in the professions have doubled since 1969. The actual numbers, however, remain small. For the first time there are black women reaching higher job - levels in the black universities and as technical assistants. Again, this is an indication of 'superficial' progress for these changes can never affect more than a very few. For the majority of women there can never be progress until the whole society moves forward.
The movement of women into the professions or management is part of a general shift in the distribution of women in various occupations and sectors of the economy. Overall the proportion of women in the workforce has been increasing over the past two decades, more rapidly in some sectors than others. There has also been a shift in the occupational structure and in a number of areas there has been a movement of women into positions that are better paid or of higher status than before.
The shift has however been within the general structure of apartheid. The position of black women relative to white women changes little, and in each sector and within each 'population group' women continue to be disadvantaged relative to men. And the greatest changes, measured in percentage terms, have affected the fewest women: the great bulk of women remain in the lowest paid and most exploited sectors of the economy.
Trends
In the past few years white women have been vacating jobs in the service industries and as clerks and typists to move into higher secretarial and administrative positions, while Coloured, Indian and African women have replaced them. In the 1960s Indian and Coloured women began moving into the clerical and sales sectors and African women into the industrial sector (see Table VI). The bulk of African women, however, have remained in the service and agricultural sectors; in 1981 (50 per cent and 19 per cent respectively)59 most were migrants on temporary contracts. Eleven per cent of African women were classed by the Department of Statistics as 'professionals', but nurses and poorly trained teachers are part of this category. Nursing and teaching accounted for 94.5 per cent of Coloured women, 86.4 per cent of Indian women and 94.8 per cent of African women who are classed as 'professionals'.60
Since the mid - 1970s thousands of black women in the towns have been stepping into jobs that were previously only occupied by white women.61 These are in office work, banking, in the film, hotel and television industries, and most notably in the retail trade, where only a few years ago black sales assistants and cashiers were unknown. Several hotels, according to a press report,62 have been hiring black women as housekeepers, telex operators and in personnel departments. The banks offer jobs to black women, within the framework of the law which prohibits blacks from supervising whites. The manager of a supermarket group said that 60 per cent of the supermarkets' cashiers in the Transvaal were black women.
Although the number of Africans apprenticed in skilled trades is growing, it is still small. The number of black women in skilled trades is even smaller, but because the wages are low it is also growing, even in areas which have traditionally not employed women.63
Where opportunities to move into different jobs do occur, black women are very quick to seize them, as noted above in relation to the professions.64
The first black woman to become a clinical psychologist, Connie Pretorius, stated that black women do not feel they have to choose between having children or having a career because of the extended family tradition among blacks. The high value placed on education - often the only thing that black parents can give their children - is one of the causes of black women's growing success in the economic sphere.
The greatest surge forward for black women has come in comparatively new fields such as university professors and technical assistants. Black women make up nearly 70 per cent of all black professionals here.65
But still the majority remain in domestic and agricultural jobs, and the fact that the numbers of women in the professions doubled between 1969 and 1982 still leaves the vast majority of black women as unskilled and underpaid.
The upward mobility of women across the colour spectrum is hindered by legal obstacles, by the regime's policy and also by entrenched discriminatory attitudes.
Wage discrimination operates against women in all racial and employment categories, according to the Institute of Labour Relations of the University of South Africa reporting on research done in 1979. White women's wages, though higher than those of other women, were affected by sexual discrimination, with 'more than 80 per cent of the income differentials between the male and female groups due to labour market discrimination against the female'; sexual discrimination against Coloured women represented 75 per cent of the gap between male and female, and Asian women were discriminated against to the extent of 'a mere 28 per cent' of the total. No figures were given for African women.66
Education
The movement of women into higher positions in the professions or in commerce and industry rests both on the opening up of such jobs to them and also on there being sufficient women receiving the type of education necessary for such posts. And women's education is yet another area where the lines of racialism and sexism converge.
African people - both men and women - are educated within the system of 'Bantu Education' based on the ideology expressed by Dr Verwoerd in 1954 that there was no place for Africans 'in the European community above the level of certain forms of labour'. The education received by an African therefore, should not mislead him by 'showing him the green pastures of European society in which he is not allowed to graze'.
In this respect, male and female alike suffer the disabilities inflicted by the limitations of Bantu Education.67 But where women are concerned, government policy is formed not only by the racial imperatives of apartheid society, but by attitudes on the role of women that were imported with colonial society. This in turn becomes a double handicap: the ideology of domesticity with its specific view of women's role separates women from direct participation in economic production or political processes. This ideology is internalised and becomes part of how women see themselves, reinforcing women's subordinate position in society.68
The multiple ways in which women are handicapped in seeking education is evident throughout this book. They operate in the home, through parents' attitudes and expectations for their male and female children; in the physiological field, where lack of access to birth control and abortion leads to an extremely high rate of pre - marital pregnancy among African schoolgirls with a resulting high dropout rate. According to one account, 37 per cent of African girls who left school early in 1976 did so because they were pregnant.69
Lack of access to education is another important factor, particularly among women in rural areas. Women also have less access to vocational and other institutions. In 1977 there were only 22 schools offering postprimary vocational training for African females; and while vocational training for males included courses related to a variety of industrial roles (building, motor mechanics, electricians and so on), vocational training for girls was limited to dressmaking, domestic science and home management. Stress on domestic skills produces a 'pool of unskilled labour whose talents are untapped'.70
The place assigned to women in the social division of labour determines their access to education, and lack of access prevents them from obtaining any but the most rudimentary skills. Illiteracy and inability to speak English and Afrikaans will also hinder rural women in the possibility of obtaining work involving training and skills. In 1980, 49.5 per cent of African women (and the same proportion of African men) had no educational qualifications at all.71
Despite the many handicaps of women entering industry, the trade union movement has proved to be a training ground for women organisers and political leaders. It was within the trade unions that women first rose to positions of political importance, and the special experience of women as workers has been significant within the resistance movement as a whole.
The trade unions have acted as catalysts for the emergence of effective organisers and leaders in many campaigns against apartheid. They have done this despite tremendous personal cost, for the organisers were persecuted, prosecuted, beaten and harassed, banned and imprisoned, but never defeated.72
Historically the leading role taken by women in union organisation was facilitated by the fact that the main law covering labour organisation, the Industrial Conciliation Act, excluded 'pass - bearing natives' from its provisions. Because women were so peripheral to the economy and until the end of the 1950s did not have to carry passes, they were not even defined as 'employees'. This enabled them to play an active role, particularly during the 1940s and 1950s although African trade unions had no official status.
The women trade unionists were so courageous. The government and the employers thought they could be stopped by halting the work of individual women. But the movement was never one of individuals. The spirit of these individual women inspired us whether they were with us or silenced. The government simply does not comprehend the power of the desire for freedom and equality. That power can never be destroyed.
(Bettie du Toit, who has lived in exile after being banned from trade union activity for many years - R Lapchick & S Urdang, 'The Effects of Apartheid on the Employment of Women in South Africa: and a History of the Role of Women in the Trade Union', Paper presented at UN Conference on Women, Copenhagen 14 - 30 July 1980)
Both black women and white women received a political training through the trade union movement and the process of shop - floor organising. Many of these women who joined the trade unions had not before been involved in politics, but they rose to be leading figures in the liberation movement as a whole.
The women workers' practical experience of the need for unity in labour struggles was carried forward into the women's organisations, giving them their character of non - racialism and acceptance of women from widely divergent backgrounds.
The Industrial Legislation Commission (1950) enforced apartheid by law in the trade unions. In 1954, with the passing of legislation providing for the extension of passes to women, African women were excluded from the definition of employee for the first time under the Industrial Conciliation Act. In 1956, job reservation was enforced by law. Within three years of the Suppression of Communism Act (1950) the government had banned 56 trade union activists, including several women. The government was dismantling the hard - won long - fought - for influence of women in the trade unions. Even in the face of this the women still led strikes, although strikes were illegal.
Last year sometime all the workers at the factory I was working in met and talked about the low wages we were getting. All the workers were women. Everybody talked and we agreed that we should go on strike and demand more money. We were so united nothing could come between us.
On Monday morning we all refused to come in to work but stood outside. Time went by without a single one of us getting inside. The manager quickly phoned the police. Oh! this didn't help him at all. We stayed outside - we knew what we wanted.
The police told us that those who wanted to work should get inside and work. Not a single one of us did go. The owner now sat down to think properly and see what he could do. Then he saw that there was no other solution but to raise our wages.
(A worker describing a strike she took part in during 1982, in a letter to a women's paper - Speak, No. 4, 1982)
By 1960 a generation of women trade unionists whose names had become legendary over the decades of struggle, had been silenced. Amongst them were: Elizabeth Mafekeng, President of the African Food and Canning Workers Union, who was banished far away from her home, her husband and eleven children; Frances Baard, Port Elizabeth Secretary of the Food and Canning Workers Union, who was banished to Mabopane, a thousand miles from her home after spending six years in jail; Mary Moodley, an organiser in the Food and Canning Workers Union, who from the time she was banned in 1963, had only three days in which she was not restricted and silenced until she died in 1979; Bettie du Toit, Secretary of the Laundry Workers Union in the Cape, and Ray Alexander, an organiser in the Food and Canning Workers Union, who were forced into exile.
With a renewed upsurge of strikes among black workers in the 1970s, along with changes in the nature of the workforce needed, and international pressures, the government sought by what they called 'substantial concessions' to bring about co - operation from organised workers. Most trade unionists were not deceived, and workers, both men and women, took great risks in striking in many places. There was a major growth in trade union membership amongst black workers, mainly in new trade unions which were independent of those which accepted the existing official segregated framework of labour relations and trade union registration.
By 1983 there were 24 women general secretaries amongst 240 unions.73
Women have continued to participate in trade unions as organisers, secretaries and members who show great solidarity and courage when driven to go on strike. The persecution, bans, arrests and prolonged solitary confinement of these women has not lessened their participation and courage. Women activists have consistently fought for workers' solidarity across the barriers of racialism, sex and class within the trade unions, learning in practice the meaning of unity in struggle; while recognising that their role in the labour front is part of the total struggle against apartheid, for national liberation.
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