Making it work : aspects of marriage, motherhood and money-earning among white South African women 1960-1990

Clowes, Lindsay

Making it work : aspects of marriage, motherhood and money-earning among white South African women 1960-1990

Master Thesis

1994

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Department of Historical Studies

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Abstract

This study provides a feminist perspective on aspects of change in white women's lives in South Africa between 1960 and 1990. Changing patterns of women's work, where work encompasses unpaid domestic labour as well as paid employment outside the home, are traced. The different ways in which women have combined their socially defined obligations as wives and mothers, as employees or employers, are considered. The primary sources used include open-ended interviews with women, magazines and the publications of women's organisations. The period 1960-1973 was one in which most white women left the paid labour force after marrying. Towards the end of the period, in the context of a booming economy and a perceived shortage of skilled white labour, more white wives were remaining in employment after marriage. The media, women's organisations, the state, big business and white male workers were addressing, in different ways, the conflict between white wives entering paid employment and the necessity to protect traditional values whereby 'good' wives stayed at home. 1974-1984 saw large and increasing numbers of white wives taking up paid work, both part-time and full-time. The period saw employed wives becoming increasingly commonplace, while the range of occupations open to them expanded. Observing that most remained in the lower levels of corporate hierarchies, women's organisations focused on eliminating the 'glass ceilings' said to block women's entry to higher paid positions. By 1985-1990, women were encouraged to be ambitious, assertive and to strive for self-fulfilment through their careers. The conflict of trying to achieve in the male dominated business world, combined with a sexual division of labour that persisted in defining the home and the family as women's work, saw many women leave the work place to start up home-based businesses.