War against Women

This chapter examines the varied responses of Winburg’s women to British military occupation during the South African War. When the men went off to fight, most Boer women stayed at home and took on entirely new and unfamiliar responsibilities. Aside from having to exercise authority over male farmworkers, women increasingly had to take on farming operations themselves. For the most part they continued to play a support role in relation to the fighting burghers, but some were friendly toward the British, assisted them, and even collaborated with them. This chapter first considers how the British sought to justify their actions as consistent with their self-image of chivalry before discussing the reasons for the devastation of the countryside. It then describes the Boer women’s experience in terms of their sense of betrayal, the ruthlessness of the British military, and the violation of female space. It also looks at the British’s defense of the concentration camps and concludes with an assessment of the militancy of the Boer woman.