Elaine Unterhalter

About the Author: Elaine Unterhalter is a senior research officer in the sociology department at the University of Essex in Great Britain.

White society in apartheid South Africa is characterised by marked racism and sexism. Nonetheless, despite the legal and economic barriers to women’s equality and a highly developed ideology of the inferiority of women, white women have served in the military since 1971. This study examines some of the ambiguities that have resulted from the recruitment of white women for white South Africa in general and the South African Defence Force (SADF) in particular.

My argument is that the ideological need to unify whites around the military policy of the regime in support of minority white rule has been of paramount importance in recruiting white women...