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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The Comradely Ideal and the Volksmoeder Ideal: Uncovering Gender Ideology in the Voortrekker Tapestry
Author:Van der Watt, Liese
Year:1998
Periodical:South African Historical Journal
Issue:39
Period:November
Pages:91-110
Language:English
Geographic term:South Africa
Subjects:nationalism
Afrikaners
Great Trek
carpets
visual arts
Women's Issues
History and Exploration
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
Historical/Biographical
arts
Ethnic and Race Relations
Cultural Roles
Sex Roles
External link:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02582479808671331
Abstract:This article examines the role of visual culture in the formation of Afrikaner nationalism in South Africa. It focuses on the Voortrekker tapestry - a series of 15 tapestry panels made between 1952 and 1960, depicting the Great Trek of 1838. The idea of a tapestry frieze was part of a special campaign launched by the Vrou- en Moederbeweging (VMB) van die Afrikaanse Taal en Kultuur Vereniging (ATKV). The Voortrekker tapestry was a collective project, representing all Afrikaner women and offering a way to grant them limited access in the public realm of Afrikaner politics. The frontier family as portrayed in the tapestries was used to naturalize an idyll of family life promoted around the time of commissioning the tapestries, an idyll which served to inform and cement hierarchies not only within the private family, but also within the public family, 'die volk'. Underpinning this carefully structured family was the 'volksmoeder' ideology, an ideology which confined women to the carefully guarded boundaries of what a woman's role supposedly entailed, and effectively silenced them. This is best illustrated by the rather disgraceful conclusion to the history of the tapestries. Although made for the Voortrekker Monument, the tapestries were placed in 1966 in the newly erected Voortrekker Museum. Afrikaner women were excluded from the main building, which was reserved for masculine activity, the public sphere of Afrikaner power. Notes, ref.
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