Women and Industrial Change

Abstract

Within economic geography women-related research is an undeveloped area. Women’s changing participation in the South African industrial system forms the focus of the present study. The economic spaces available for penetration by women in South Africa are shaped by two overlapping structures of domination which create a division of labour moulded by cleavages of both race and sex. Against this setting the paper addresses the growing national importance of women in manufacturing, the historically shifting racial patterns of employment, the activities which constitute ‘women’s work’ and the changing spatial dimensions of women’s industrial employment in South Africa.