In Lesley Mofokeng's biography Bitch Please, I’m Khanyi Mbau he presents the following scathing criticism: "Women regard Khanyisile Mbau with disdain. We dislike her in an era when women are fighting for the place they deserve in society."Mbau reinforces the not-yet-abandoned notion that all women live for is finding a rich man who can look after them."Mbau's out of favour because she acts as though the feminist movement never happened - as though feminism is a contemporary feminine myth. Mbau is hell-bent on losing our feminist war for us."Other kinds of barbed words are thrown at Mbau, a TV personality, actress and socialite - super-bitch, gold-digger, attractive slut, queen of bling - and what they all have in common is the veiled or expressed chagrin that Mbau is a woman who abuses her femininity to get money.There is no class category for a woman like Mbau because much of the terminology used to understand such social climbing was coined in a world where most social climbers were men.Thus, one could call her an upstart, parvenu, arriviste, nouveau riche or a vulgarian and it would still not capture the many ways in which her name and character have been used and abused to comment on the meaning of wealth in South Africa today.Importantly, she does not really fit into the class structure that is normally used to discuss social stratification; she is not middle class or upper class although she grew up in a middle-class home and married a man who was a millionaire.Her constant vacillation between these class categories hints at the possibility that we may need new classes to insert her into, or perhaps we need new approaches with which to talk about the seemingly toxic nexus of wealth, blackness, femininity and power in the new South Africa.block_quotes_start She represents what some are calling “pleasure politics” or the “politics of pleasure” block_quotes_endNotions of class or elitism don't seem appropriate for the larger-than-life proportion of Mbau's cult figure or celebrity status precisely because she is almost entirely a self-made phenomenon. And, she continues to reinvent herself so that she became a talkshow host in an eponymously titled e.tv show, Katch It With Khanyi.Physically, Mbau is also a surgeon's dream; she has moulded herself into the figure of a black Barbie, or, better still, she is a cross between Joan Collins and Donatella Versace.The constant sculpting of body and image means that no matter what the results, Mbau is always happy with who she is. As a friend of mine noted, she is authentically fake.While perusing Mbau's Instagram page, I came across her post of the quote by Gloria Steinem, the American feminist and founder of Ms. Magazine: "Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry."full_story_image_hleft1It is one among many quotes and motivational blurbs that now define who Mbau is.By quoting one of the doyens of American feminism, Mbau is affirming the "depth" of Steinem's assertion while also maybe identifying herself as a woman who has learnt the truth of this insight.What both feminists and the moralisers seem to miss is that Mbau is a beneficiary of the feminist movement, and also part of the tradition that may be called the Joburg hustle - the set of activities and confidence tricks by which money and wealth are created in a precarious social or economic environment. Her success depends on the success of other women precisely because she is modelling herself after other women.Importantly, the notion of the "hustle" is a better characterisation of Mbau's story so far.She represents what some are calling "pleasure politics" or the "politics of pleasure", defined broadly as the understanding that women, especially women of colour, cannot escape their exoticisation/abjection and that they should respond by taking pleasure in their bodies and desires. Thus, by constantly altering her face and body, Mbau is not flaunting her wealth or rubbing it in the faces of the poor, she is indulging in a pleasure/leisure activity in which the object of desire is herself and she is her own admirer.Mokoena is an associate professor at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (Wiser). This is an edited extract of the paper "Khanyi Mbau: Some Notes on How the Media Shouldn't Address 'Rich' Black People" she presented at a recent workshop, The New Middle Class in the Global South, at Wiser..