‘Die hand aan die wieg regeer die land [The hand that rocks the cradle rules the land]’: Exploring the Agency and Identity of Women in the Ossewa- Brandwag, 1939–1954
Abstract
The Ossewa-Brandwag (Oxwagon Sentinal) was an Afrikaner nationalist
organisation strongly influenced by the dominant Fascist ideologies between
the two world wars. Within a few years the organization became a mass
movement with more than a hundred thousand members. This also included
tens of thousands of women. This article sets out to show how members of the
Ossewa-Brandwag Vroue-afdeling (Women’s Department) were active social
agents who played an indispensable part in running the movement. It further
assesses how OB women articulated and interpreted their female identity as
volksmoeders. A special emphasis is placed on women’s role as fundraisers as
well as their discursive construction of Afrikaner femininity. This evaluation is
done against the backdrop of the OB's ‘ideal image of womanhood’ which
normatively dictated femininity. As such this article builds upon the research
already done on the volksmoeder in order to shed light on the agency of a certain
group of people who have received little historical attention in the past.
Through assessing the nature of OB women’s fundraising it becomes evident
that it would have been impossible for the movement to exist without its female
members. Furthermore their own articulation of the conventional ideal of
Afrikaner womanhood shows that women construed the volksmoeder as a
potent tool of maternalist power.
Collections
- Faculty of Humanities [2033]