Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Note for Readers
- Introduction: Searching the Archive
- 1 Representations of Domestic Workers
- 2 Enslaved Women at the Cape: The First Domestic Workers
- 3 Migrant Women and Domestic Work in the City
- 4 Legislation and Black Urban Women
- 5 Domestic Workers in Personal Accounts
- 6 Oral Testimonies, Interviews and a Novel
- 7 Domestic Workers and Children
- 8 Domestic Workers and Sexuality
- 9 Domestic Workers in Troubled Times
- 10 Domestic Workers in Post-apartheid Novels by White Authors
- 11 Domestic Workers in Post-apartheid Novels by Black Authors
- 12 Domestic Workers Bridge the Gap
- Notes
- Artists and Photographers
- Bibliography
- Index
8 - Domestic Workers and Sexuality
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 October 2019
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Note for Readers
- Introduction: Searching the Archive
- 1 Representations of Domestic Workers
- 2 Enslaved Women at the Cape: The First Domestic Workers
- 3 Migrant Women and Domestic Work in the City
- 4 Legislation and Black Urban Women
- 5 Domestic Workers in Personal Accounts
- 6 Oral Testimonies, Interviews and a Novel
- 7 Domestic Workers and Children
- 8 Domestic Workers and Sexuality
- 9 Domestic Workers in Troubled Times
- 10 Domestic Workers in Post-apartheid Novels by White Authors
- 11 Domestic Workers in Post-apartheid Novels by Black Authors
- 12 Domestic Workers Bridge the Gap
- Notes
- Artists and Photographers
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Aisha. It was … dare he say it … the name of a woman, a mysterious woman.
Elsa Joubert — ‘Kaap’ (1980)Sexual relations between European men and local women existed at the Cape from the time of the arrival of Jan van Riebeeck in 1652, and interracial sex increased after 1658, when enslaved people joined the community. Sex across the colour line was a regular and often brutal occurrence, both in households and in brothels. Some liasons were love affairs, but the social distance between partners was vast and, in contrast to the Dutch East Indies, such relationships were frowned upon at the Cape. By the twentieth century the interracial sex taboo was already so widespread that outright prohibition seemed logical. Although tourist pictures of young black women in front of rural huts were common during apartheid, their naked breasts were classed with wild life and other kitsch images as natural beauty, thereby dehumanising the women.
By the 1960s, white families had apparently managed to construct black women as completely asexual, as nothing more than servants. This is clear from a scene in Jan van Tonder's Stargazer, where the narrator, young Timus, boasts that he spied on domestic worker, Gladys, while she was washing herself. While Timus is aware of the sexual nature of his deed, his friend Joepie asks what is so special about seeing Gladys naked:
But she's black!’
‘So what? Women are women. They're all the same under their clothes.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I've got five sisters.’
Joepie couldn't argue with that. He only had brothers, and they were all younger than him. When I spoke about girls, he listened.
‘[…]You and I can watch Gladys together one evening.’
He shook his head. ‘Why would I do that? We've got our own maid.’ (62)
Ignorant and sexually inexperienced as he is, Joepie simply assumes that he has access to the body of the family's servant whenever he wishes.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Like FamilyDomestic Workers in South African History and Literature, pp. 162 - 189Publisher: Wits University PressPrint publication year: 2019