Space and Non-Space: What it Means to be a Woman
Isolation wreaks havoc on all but a few people who are called to be hermits.
Some African historians have explored the idea that social structure, process, or conditions related to colonialism may have contributed to the psychological breakdown of certain Africans, women in particular. In a colonial context, those conditions included cultural alienation, the inability to negotiate different ideals of femininity, and conflicting notions of race. (See footnote 1). In other words, these women felt alone and afraid because of the cultural, political, and social changes occurring around them.
As Shula Marks points out in Not Either An Experimental Doll, psychological breakdowns can't be isolated to these things alone. (See footnote 2). Nevertheless, the idea that some African women were unable to walk the line demarcating the contrasting or conflicting ideals of womanhood is a particularly compelling aspect of Not Either An Experimental Doll, which gives us a prime example in the shape of "Lily Moya," the young African woman whose correspondence with her white female benefactress form the body of Marks's book.
In 1949, Lily Patience Moya started a correspondence with Dr. Mabel Palmer, a well-known educator and activist who, among other things, successfully agitated for a section of Natal University College for blacks. She began by requesting help with her education: "I can be very pleased if you can take me in your college as a boarding student. I do n't [sic] moralise when I tell you that I'm a helpless orphan. I have obtained this educational status through my being a day-scholar student, due only to my financial embarrassment" (Marks, 55).
Dr. Palmer eventually agreed to take Lily on as her own "protégé," funding her education at Adams College. Her agreement hinged partly on her realization that Lily saw education as a way of escape from an impending arranged marriage, a fact that endeared her to Palmer's radical feminist heart.
As the correspondence between the two women unfolds, however, it becomes obvious that Lily was hoping for far more than financial assistance: she was also looking for a mentor and a friend, two roles Dr. Palmer was unwilling to fill. The letters between the two grew increasingly agitated as Lily accused Dr. Palmer of neglecting her and Dr. Palmer demanded that Lily stop complaining about the school and asking for impossible things.
"You say that one of your reasons for wishing to be in Durban is that you want to see more of me," writes Dr. Palmer, "but have you ever asked yourself whether I wish to see more of you? As a matter of fact I do not. Your romantic and self-centred imagination has built up for you a picture in which you are to be my devoted and intimate friend. Now you must forgive me for saying that this is all nonsense. Even if you were a European girl of your age it would still be nonsense. What basis of companionship could there be between a quarter educated girl of eighteen and an experienced old lady like myself?" (Marks, 136).
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