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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Moving the Fence: Gender in the Ciskei and Border Textile Industry, 1945-1986
Author:Mager, Anne K.ISNI
Year:1989
Periodical:Social Dynamics
Volume:15
Issue:2
Period:December
Pages:46-62
Language:English
Geographic terms:South Africa
Ciskei
Subjects:women workers
industry
textile industry
Development and Technology
Economics and Trade
Women's Issues
Labor and Employment
economics
Historical/Biographical
External link:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02533958908458474
Abstract:The textile industry in the Ciskei and Border region of South Africa began in the 1920s, employing white female labour. In the 1940s, under pressure of war and with the aid of a moving fence, African men replaced white women. High labour turnover, increasing costs of importing technology and international competition in the early 1960s impelled textile bosses to cut labour costs and so to replace men with African women operatives. In the 1980s, the large, capital intensive textile mills of the Border were joined by scores of smaller, footloose plants lured by decentralization incentives and the abundant, cheap, tractable female labour offered by the newly 'independent' Ciskei. Women carry the full weight of labour both in the textile industry and on the land. Their husbands being away at the mines, they have to do the rural domestic labour as well. This differential proletarianization of women, combined with the uneven development of the textile industry, has produced a highly divided working class in which women are numerically stronger. While economic autonomy may have freed some women from specific aspects of male domination in the family, wage employment has exposed them to patriarchal control and economic exploitation at work. Bibliogr., ref., sum.
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