Doing gender is unavoidable : women's participation in the core activities of the Ossewa-Brandwag, 1938-1943

Abstract

Afrikaner women played a major role in the Ossewa-Brandwag (OB) movement in South Africa from 1939 to 1954. Women participated in a range of activities as part of the OB Women's Division. As an organisation born out of nationalism, women's agency was highly influenced by the so-called volksmoeder (mother of the nation) ideal. In order to understand how normative concepts of gender, as embodied in the volksmoeder, influenced the agency of OB women, this article looks at how women, through their "doing" of gender, contributed to construing and establishing the volksmoeder as a normative and symbolic gender concept in the Ossewa-Brandwag. Thus, it aims to throw light on how contemporaries, who were members of the Ossewa-Brandwag, understood and used gender difference in their societal organisation. By focusing on the core activities of the OB Women's Division, the article observes how OB women were actively involved in "doing" gender. The aim of this study does not involve an analysis of the volksmoeder per se, but of the relation between the performativity of gender and the nature of the volksmoeder as gender construction in this particular case of OB women.

Afrikaner vroue het 'n belangrike rol in die Ossewa-Brandwag gespeel. Dié beweging het in Suid-Afrika bestaan tussen 1939 tot 1954. Vroue het deelgeneem aan 'n reeks aktiwiteite as deel van die OB Vroue-Afdeling. As beweging gebore uit Afrikaner nasionalisme, was vroue se agentskap hoofsaaklik beïnvloed deur die sogenaamde volksmoeder-ideaal. Ten einde te verstaan hoe normatiewe konsepte van gender, soos uitgebeeld in die volksmoeder, die agentskap van OB-vroue beïnvloed het, let hierdie artikel op hoe vroue, by wyse van hulle "doen" van gender, bygedra het tot die konstruksie en vaslê van die volksmoeder as normatiewe gender konsep in die OB. Die doel is dus op lig te werp op hoe tydgenote, wat lede was van die OB, geslagtelike verskil verstaan en gebruik het in hulle sosiale organisering. Deur te fokus op die kernaktiwiteite van die OB Vroue-Afdeling verken hierdie artikel hoe OB-vroue aktief besig was om gender te "doen". Daar word nie noodwendig 'n analise gemaak van die volksmoeder nie, maar daar word eerder gekyk na die verhouding tussen die "performatiewe" aard van gender en die normatiewe aard van die volksmoeder as gender konstruksie in hierdie spesifieke geval van OB-vroue.