Clearly, without the literary mediation of Joubert, most white South Africans would, at the time, not have understood the magnitude of the plight of Poppie and the thousands of black women like her. Without the novel, the structural violence and cruelty of the pass laws would most certainly not have been so fiercely debated at the time. The publication of Poppie Nongena, with Joubert’s effective narration of this individual woman’s life story, caused white South African readers to be shocked into a realisation of the harsh effects of pass laws on suffering black families. Years later, historian Hermann Giliomee wryly remarked in his highly-acclaimed study, The Afrikaners (2003): ‘An average Afrikaner family could easily relate to the book, because they had someone like Poppie […] working as a servant in their home.’6 The same applies also, of course, to white English-speaking families.
The Cycle of Representation
In the wake of Poppie Nongena, throughout the 1980s and 1990s, literary scholars such as Vernon February, Jakes Gerwel and Judy Gardner researched and meticulously documented the representation of many black characters by white authors in South African literature. Today, theoretical and ethical issues pertaining to representation and appropriation in the arts are robustly debated, with many questions being raised.7 Is it possible for a white author such as Dan Sleigh or Trudie Bloem to comprehend the life of Krotoa-Eva, let alone represent her adequately? May white authors presume to tell the story of a black person, as do André Brink in his tale of Philida, a slave woman, and Nadine Gordimer in her story of the manservant, July, and JM Coetzee in his chronicle of Michael K? Is it appropriate for Koos Kombuis (André du Toit) to sing a song about his nanny, Kytie? Similar questions are topical in the fine arts domain. Marion Arnold’s ‘Portraits of Servitude’ in her study, Women and Art in South Africa (1996), examines the work of Irma Stern, Dorothy Kay and Keith Dietrich, showing that paintings of servants are among the most problematic visual representations in South African art.8 Such portraits convey influential societal values, and stereotypes may either be confirmed and perpetuated or questioned and disrupted.
In Arnold’s analysis of Kay’s painting, Cookie, Annie Mavata (1956), she points out its power:
Annie Mavata meets the viewer’s gaze boldly. […] Although wearing a uniform, [she] is not stereotyped by it. Her own reality and personhood are established through her assertive body language. She is conscious that she is being scrutinised and she meets the appraisal on her terms. […] The authority of the Mavata portrait is, in part, a product of the naturalistic style adopted. […] Tension is established between the iconic stillness of the woman and the few objects in the painting. Of particular interest is the dark void. […] It asserts that we know nothing more about Annie Mavata than what we see. […] The painting is a portrait; it is not a didactic illustration of a cook in the kitchen.9
Kay neither questions the institution of servitude, and nor does she sentimentalise Mavata: instead, she respectfully reveals her subject, leaving interpretation to the viewer.10
Postcolonial theory has made people aware of the fact that what they perceive as ‘reality’ is in fact heavily influenced by what they read, by films, artworks and the advertisements they see. In 1997, British cultural theorist Stuart Hall introduced the previously mentioned concept of ‘cycle of representation’. Authors and artists represent what they observe, and these representations in turn influence how all of us as consumers of cultural products view ‘reality’. One can safely assume that books have a huge influence on children’s attitudes to life. One such example is the Maasdorp books, an Afrikaans series of boarding school novels read by generations of schoolgirls. The heroine is the beautiful, talented and adventurous Kobie Malan.11 In one episode, Kobie and a friend prepare to pack for school after spending a weekend in the posh Cape Town home of the Malan family. Her friend is about to carry her suitcase downstairs when Kobie breezily says: ‘Never mind. One of the maids will do that.’ The likely reader, by now in awe of Kobie and her family, would probably not have blinked an eyelid at Kobie’s remark. Instead, she would probably have aspired to living in a suburb such as Oranjezicht, with servants in attendance. Also, Mrs Malan is likely to have been the ultimate role model: an elegant woman who confidently leaves her large house in the care of loyal staff as she drives off to a meeting in her shiny black car.12
Working Conditions
After the ANC came to power, strict legislation concerning the working conditions of domestic workers was passed. In 1996, the new constitution was adopted with a comprehensive Bill of Rights and a Reconstruction and Development Programme. The Labour Relations Act of 1995 had already legalised the unionisation of domestic workers, while the Domestic Workers’ Act of 1997 prescribes minimum wages on an annual basis, and specifies working conditions such as hours of work, overtime pay, salary increases, deductions, as well as annual and sick leave.13 Domestic workers are entitled to four months' unpaid maternity leave as well as severance pay of one week for each year of service. Contracts, contributions to an unemployment fund, and conditions for dismissal are regulated.
In spite of these guidelines, as sociologist Shireen Ally convincingly argues in her study, From Servants to Workers (2010), many South African domestic workers believe that working conditions have not necessarily changed for the better. According to especially older women, the new laws often impact negatively as it is practically impossible to enforce acceptable working conditions in the one-on-one relationship between a worker and her employer behind the closed doors of private homes. Workers know that the South African Domestic Service and Allied Workers Union (SADSAWU) can provide assistance, and that grievances should be reported to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA). However, these formal arrangements have removed much of the personal negotiating power domestic workers previously enjoyed when they were considered to be ‘part of the family’. Strategies that included a combination of direct requests, subtle hints and sulky behaviour were often effective in ‘malevolent maternalistic’ environments, though they are not nearly as successful in a more formal post-apartheid relationship where employers suspect that a domestic worker might appeal to labour unions to back her. Should a worker ask for more money or extra days off, an employer might simply refer to the official minimum wage or sarcastically reply that they should instead ‘ask Mandela’ – or Ramaphosa, or whoever happens to be running the country. Ally found that employers, having registered their workers and signed the obligatory contract, will often say that they are no longer personally responsible for anything beyond paying slightly more than the minimum wage.
From Kytie to Katie
Much credit is, however, often given by employers to the important role played by domestic workers, and in 2008 Western Cape Premier Helen Zille proposed that a monument be erected to them.14 Although Zille’s suggestion was met with widespread public approval, and images of domestic workers such as Mary Sibande’s bold artworks are present in urban spaces, no such monument has yet been erected. In public discourse, white people regularly reflect nostalgically on individual black women who cared for them as children, though these reflections are a disconcerting mix of sincere but often sentimental and sometimes even offensive memories. One example is a Facebook post that went viral in May 2018,