S. Dagut, Gender, colonial 'women's history' and the construction of social distance: Middle-class British women in later nineteenth-century South Africa, J S AFR ST, 26(3), 2000, pp. 555-572
In recent years, two streams of feminist historiography - one emerging in S
outh Africa, the other arising from an examination of European colonialism
in general - have converged to create a balanced and subtle conceptual sche
me within which to consider women's roles in the social world of colonial S
outh Africa. This work identifies and avoids the inaccuracies which result
from writing of women in the colonial period as though they were 'people of
gender', enclosed within a 'separate sphere' created by patriarchy. Recent
empirical work on settler women in South Africa, inspired by these histori
ographical advances, has starred to provide a much more rounded view of set
tler women's attitudes, experiences and serial roles than had hitherto exis
ted It is, however possible to identify an important continuity of approach
between earlier and more recent historiographical generations. This contin
uity pertains to the importance of the concept of 'social distance' in thin
king about European women's experience and social impact in colonies. The a
rticle attempts to show that an approach centred on the concept of 'social
distance', suitably adapted in Eight of recent advances, has major advantag
es: It is both gender-sensitive and gender-neutral, it is empirically well-
supported and it enables clear connections to be established between women'
s experience and the construction of colonial society as a whole.