'Woman' as sign in the South African colonial enterprise

Abstract

Patriarchal discourse continually reproduces the division between culture and nature, a division of obvious importance to the colonial enterprise, whose success demands the preservation of dichotomies such as civilized and primitive, white and black, masculine and feminine. The emigration of British women to the colonies served a variety of social and economic purposes; it also neutralized the potential threat to patriarchal discourse of the idea of "surplus women", which exceeded the limits of "femininity". The idea of "frontierswoman" in the colonies posed an additional threat, which was again neutralized by the patriarchal demands regarding femininity and the other cultural imperatives placed upon colonial women. This essay scrutinizes some of these cultural imperatives, namely that women act as "bearers of culture" and as "mediators", and it suggests how women were used by the patriarchal and imperialist system to reproduce the crucial dichotomies, and how they were, in the process, redefined as the "feminine" selves that they threatened, as "surplus women" and as "frontierswomen", not to be.

Opsomming

Patriargale diskoers herskep voortdurend die skeiding tussen kultuur en natuur, 'n skeiding van ooglopende belang vir die koloniale ondernemingsgees, wie se sukses afhang van die bewaring van tweeledighede, soos beskaafde en primitiewe, wit en swart, en manlik en vroulik. Die emigrasie van Britse vroue na die kolonies het 'n verskeidenheid sosiale en ekonomiese funksies vervul; dit het ook die potensiele bedreiging teen patriargale diskoers van die idee van "surplus vrou" geneutraliseer, wat die grense van ''vroulikheid" oorskry het. Die idee van "baanbrekersvroue" het ook 'n addisionele bedreiging geskep, wat weer eens geneutraliseer is deur die patriargale vereistes betreffende vroulikheid, en ander kulturele verpligtinge wat geplaas is op koloniale vroue. Hierdie artikel ondersoek sommige van die verpligtinge, naamlik dat vroue optree as "draers van die kultuur" en as "tussen­gangers", en dit toon aan hoe vroue gebruik is deur die patriargale en imperialistiese sisteem om die belangrike tweeledighede te herskep, en hoe hulle in die proses geherdefi­nieer is as die ''vroulike" self wat hulle, as "surplus vroue" en as "baanbrekersvroue", gedreig het om nie te wees nie.