Women and society in native life in South Africa: roles and ruptures

Examines Solomon Plaatje’s views on women’s position in society and in the struggle for emancipation in South Africa in the early twentieth century. There are three main sections. The first focuses on Plaatje’s network of support in the UK, including Olive Schreiner, Sophie Colenso, Jane Cobden Unwin, Georgiana Solomon and Alice Werner. The second discusses Plaatje’s wife Elizabeth (nee M’Belle) as a role model for African women, both in her role as a mother and in the way she articulated her public and domestic responsibilities. The third discusses the Plaatje’s attitude to the role of women in organisational politics. The chapter notes the difficulties of retrieving archival evidence on women’s role in this period. It suggests that researchers need to be more expansive about where they search, such as (in this case) temperance movements.