DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LITERARY STUDIES PLAGIARISM DECLARATION FORM

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Your name: Botle Motaung

Student number: MTNBOT003

Email or cell: mtnbot003@myuct.ac.za

Course Code: ELL1016S

Lecturer/Tutor: Zainab Gafoor

DECLARATION:
I have read the UCT policy on plagiarism. I know that plagiarism is wrong. Plagiarism is to use another’s work and to
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and quotation in, this essay/report/project from the work, or works, of other people has been acknowledged through citation
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● Note that the Department of English Literary Studies prefers MLA citation convention. Refer to the referencing
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Signature: B.G Motaung Date: 26/09/2023

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The marginalization of women in Thirteen Cents.
Thirteen Cents by K. Sello Duiker is an invigorating insight into the harshness of street life and
the realities of living on the margins of society. The novel exposes and bares naked the tragedy of
the woman figure in post-Apartheid South Africa. Women, especially women of colour, being on
the intersection of race and gender, are subjected to certain ideologies held about them in society,
due to the virtue of being born female and black or coloured. This essay is going to explore the
relationship and characterisation of the woman characters Liesl and ‘the white girl’ in the novel as
examples of the marginalisation of women in post-apartheid South Africa and expose the
intersections of race and gender as they unfold. It is going to do this by analysing the characters of
the two women mentioned above, in relation to Azure, while also comparing their experiences, in
order to show the levels of marginalisation women faced at the time. Furthermore, it is going to
give commentary on the women’s economic disempowerment, use Azure as a reflection of the
way society perceived women in the 2000s, and reflect on a particular statement made by Gerald,
one of the male characters.
The character of Liesl is quite complex in that although she is vulnerable and marginalized, due to
being at the intersection of gender and race, she still exercises agency to a certain extent. As
defined by Ormond et al (175), “marginalization occurs when a group of people are pushed to the
periphery of a society”. Liesl lives under a bridge, which is the epitome of materialistic
dispossession as she lacks housing, whereas the “white bitch” (Duiker 19) and other white women
sex workers in the novel are provided housing by Allen who prefers working with white girls as
Azure states that “… Allen works as a pimp. I find him…talking to one of his white girls” (Duiker
18). Liesl is excluded from normative frameworks of labour, because of her positioning as a
coloured homeless woman and thus she resorts to sex work to make money as Azure emphatically
remarks: “Poor Liesl. I know what she does to make money. It’s not easy… when she has a cut
under her lip, I don’t say anything” (Duiker 8). Although dispossessed and marginalized, there is
the fact that Liesl sells drugs. This ability to sell drugs, which can be seen as a form of
entrepreneurship, is one that is not shared with other female characters like ‘the white girl’. Also,
unlike the ‘the white girl’, Liesl is not an addict, which alludes to a certain level of control she
still has over herself. She also has agency over who she befriends and so she serves the role of a
friend to Azure, as he mentions that, “we talk about kwaito… and we talk about other things”
(Duiker 8). Although marginalized as a woman of colour by having to live under a bridge and
having to be a sex worker, Liesl exercises a certain level of agency that other women in the novel
do not, she can sell drugs, she is not an addict, and she has a friendship with Azure.
Although a tragic figure, there are certain privileges ‘the white girl’ enjoys because of being
white, though her struggles and marginality, as a woman, are also apparent and valid. Her
marginality is brought forth when Azure states that: “That’s the problem with the white bitches. I
find that they never know when to shut up and here the ouens don’t give them a chance. They are
heavy-handed. They just whack. And if that doesn’t do it, they naai and then they fuck them up
even more,” (Duiker 19) exposing her physical disempowerment and being dominated through
sexual abuse. Like Liesl, she partakes in sex work to make money, alluding to her economic
disempowerment. ‘The white girl’, however, seems to be earning more than her black/colored
counterparts in the same work, which exposes the racially based economic inequalities in the city.
This is evident when Allen tells her that “You weren’t complaining yesterday when that client
paid you a three-hundred-rand tip,” (Duiker 19) contrasted to Azure, who gets way less for his sex
work as he states after meeting one of his ‘clients’ that “He gives me a fifty-rand note and two
five-rand coins” (Duiker 37). Unlike Liesl, the ‘white girl’ lacks agency over herself and is treated
like a possession by Allen as she says to him: “Why must I fucking work today?” (Duiker 19) and
Allen answers, “Because I told you so, bitch” (Duiker 19). Her lack of identity, being referred to
as “the white bitch” (Duiker 19) indicates her dispossession of self and identity as an individual.
She doesn’t, however, face the problem of homelessness as Liesl and Azure do, due to being
preferred and thus offered housing by Allen. It is apparent that although the ‘white girl’ benefits
from being white as she earns more money than Azure and she is not homeless like him and Liesl,
she faces marginalization as a woman, as she is physically abused by Allen, dominated through
sex, lacks agency over herself and ultimately lacks an identity.
The impoverishment of various women in the novel, Azure’s perspective of the women and a
statement Gerald makes, exposes the layers of marginality faced by woman in the 2000s, in post-
Apartheid South Africa. The most common marginalization in the women, is economic
disempowerment. Not only is this apparent in Liesl and ‘the white girl’ but in Joyce as well, who
ends up stealing Azure’s money, saying: “Your money? After all I did for you? You can’t get that
money” (Duiker 92) even though she is a working adult, and he is merely a street child, showing
the extent at which women have to go to get money. Azure then exclaims: “An image comes to
mind. I see a white man with black hair…I see an image of him doing it with Joyce…Joyce can
have that. She earned it” (Duiker 94), normalising sexual aggression towards women, labelling it
‘something they deserve’ therefore, for their actions. Allen’s sexual assault of the white girl as a
form of punishment for not wanting to ‘work’ also speaks to this commonly held notion and
Azure not addressing this matter with contempt is an indication of how normalised such behaviour
is towards women. After Azure is sexually assaulted by Richard and a bunch of other men, Gerald
states to him that: “You had to understand what it means to be a woman” (Duiker 88), to be a
woman, he meant to be dominated through sexual aggression, further revealing this
marginalization of women through sexual violation. Azure’s description of colored and black
women as he declares that “They’re full of shit, colored girls. They’ve got dirty mouths and can
never wait” (Duiker 116) and that “now the black girls are different. There’s always something
angry…in their eyes” (Duiker 116), showcases the stereotypes held about black and coloured
women respectively. Through the eyes of Azure, his conceptualizations of different women and
his interactions with the various women in the novel, and through Gerald’s statement to Azure
after he is assaulted, we get a glimpse of what it meant to be a woman in the 2000s, in the newly
democratic South Africa.
Thirteen Cents can be viewed as a social commentary of the tragic conditions woman faced in the
2000s in post-Apartheid South Africa and what it meant to be a woman at the time. It deals with
the different layers of marginality woman faced and thus the intersectionality of marginalization.
The relationship that Azure holds with particularly Liesl and ‘the white girl’ and their
characterisations in the novel bear witness of their experiences as vulnerable individuals in post-
Apartheid South Africa where matters of race and gender are still robust as they are revealed in
the two women’s lives respectively. Azure’s own conceptualizations of the various woman in the
novel and the language he uses to describe them can be seen as a mirror of what the general
society believed about woman at the time, as he is a product of socialisation. The significance of
the argument made in this essay is that exploring the layers of marginality and vulnerabilities of
woman in the novel Thirteen Cents is important as most analysis of the book focuses on Azure as
a tragic figure and while this is important, it is the woman in the background who collectively
show the roughness of being female in South Africa in the 2000s. This argument is also important
as woman’s rights are human’s rights, and the analysis of their infringements is important in the
building up of a better and more democratic South Africa that takes care of its marginalized and
vulnerable.
REFERENCE LIST

Cram, F., A. Ormond, and L. Carter. "Researching our relations: Reflections on ethics and marginalization." Kamehameha
Schools 2004 Conference on Hawaiian Well-Being. Hawaii. 2004.

Duiker, K. Sello. Thirteen Cents: A Novel. Ohio University Press, 2013.