“We’re all alike; we’re women”: Black South African Feminism and the Politics of Representation in Miriam Tlali’s Soweto Stories

Intersectional and black feminist tendencies have been largely overlooked in a South African context compared to the United States. Nevertheless, black women in South Africa grappled with multiple oppressions long before Crenshaw’s trailblazing contributions (1989, 1991). Particularly during the apartheid era, they were confronted with multilayered inequalities based on race, ethnicity, gender and class. These social identities were employed by the state to determine their rights, and gave rise to denigrating stereotypical representations. In turn, black women keep challenging these injustices and images by portraying themselves as survivors and mothers, resulting in versatile manifestations of South African feminisms. Such a pioneering feminist voice was Miriam Tlali, who was the first black woman writer to publish a novel in South Africa. Identifying as womanist rather than an adherent of western feminism, her literary works are characterised by racial solidarity across gender boundaries while centring on the specific challenges black women face. Her entire oeuvre focuses on their struggle with intersecting systems of racism and sexism. It features most explicitly, however, in her short story collection Soweto Stories (1989). In these narratives Tlali gives a voice to black women from the Soweto township who actively resist the intertwined forces of white supremacy and patriarchy. In doing so, she represents them as assertive agents, rejecting the stereotype of passive victims. By analysing her short story ‘Fud-u-u-a!’, this paper endeavours to uncover the black South African feminist standpoint Tlali adopts. Through an intersectional lens, it will explore the effects of overlapping social identities on the lives of the black female characters during their daily struggle with public transportation. Furthermore, their feminist counterreactions and strategies deployed while coping with potential dangers of sexual assault will be examined using critical discourse analysis. To reveal the reciprocal influence of politics of representation and power relations, this paper will also address intersections on a representational level. It will do so by looking into stereotypical images and how the characters reinforce or undermine these through their words and actions.