‘The piety of Afrikaner women’: In conversation with Prof. Christina Landman on the piety of Afrikaner women

Abstract

In conversation with Prof. Christina Landman’s analysis of the piety of Afrikaner women, this article explores the role patriarchy and misogyny played in subduing and silencing Afrikaner women from revolting against their male counterparts in the midst of male domination in the 19th and 20th centuries in South Africa. It asks questions around whether or not concluding that Afrikaner women remained silent and accepted male domination because of their conservative religious beliefs is oversimplification. This article further attempts to offer a deeper version of why white Afrikaner women did not protest against the patriarchal system that denied them their full humanity and freedom. The study starts by proposing a theoretical framework within which research on the subject of the Afrikanerdom’s and the Calvinism Reformed Churches’ treatment of women evolved, all the while in conversation with Prof. Landman on her thesis that Afrikaner women’s silence in patriarchal hegemony was a result of conservative Calvinism and sin–soul–salvation piety.