“I am berated as a Communist because I sometimes wear a red tie”: Not Forgetting the Awkward Afrikaner, Dr Petronella “Nell” van Heerden

Abstract

This article explores the shifts in (in)visibility of one of the few “leftist” female Afrikaner public intellectuals in twentieth-century South Africa. The Afrikaner nationalist embrace of Dr. Petronella “Nell” van Heerden (1887–1975), the country’s first woman gynecologist, soon turned into marginalization, showing the limits of colonial white dissidence.

Keywords:

• South Africa
• lesbianism
• nationalism
• whiteness

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The Afrikaner identity was constructed in early twentieth-century South Africa as a product of Afrikaner nationalism, drawing together descendants of Dutch, German, and French settlers on the basis of an ethnic whiteness.

2 Van Heerden, Die 16de Koppie.

3 Afrikaans is a language forged from Dutch, German, English, Indonesian, and local Khoi and San languages to enable communication between slaves and European settlers in the Cape colony in southern Africa. Its first written form was in the nineteenth century, in Arabic script. In the early twentieth century, Afrikaans was appropriated by Afrikaners, and elevated as an official language to form the basis of Afrikaner nationalism, which produced an intensified form of colonialism called apartheid in the second half of the twentieth century.

4 Van Niekerk, “A Woman.”

5 Witz, Minkley, and Rassool, Unsettled History; Hetherington, “Women in South Africa.”

6 Mkhize, “The Missing Idiom,” 61.

7 Mkhize, “The Missing Idiom,” 60.

8 Hetherington, “Women in South Africa”; Mkhize, “Missing Idiom.”

9 Van der Westhuizen, Sitting Pretty.

10 Gevisser and Cameron, Defiant Desire.

11 Viljoen, “Nationalism”; Smit, “‘Speaking’ and ‘Silence.’”

12 Van der Westhuizen, White Power.

13 Blignaut, “Untold History.”

14 See, for example, Galloway, Flame in the Snow.

15 Ngqulunga, The Man; Rassool, “Red Mandela.”

16 Moss, The New Radicals; Naidoo, Death of an Idealist.

17 Rothmann, “Liewe Alba” (“Dear Alba, I write to you”).

18 Willoughby-Herard, Waste.

19 Foster, Vivid Faces.

20 Foster, Vivid Faces, xviii–xx.

21 Freedman, “‘Burning of Letters.’”

22 Van Heerden, “Ou liefie” (“Old darling, thank you so much”); exact date unknown.

23 Weeks, “The Construction of Homosexuality.”

24 Freedman, “Burning of Letters.”

25 Jeffreys, “Introduction.”

26 Vicinus, “Lesbian History,” 67.

27 Smit and Viljoen are exceptions.

28 Freedman, “Burning of Letters.”

29 Rich, “Compulsory Heterosexuality.”

30 Faderman, Surpassing, 18.

31 Rich, “Compulsory Heterosexuality,” 648.

32 Van der Westhuizen, Sitting Pretty.

33 Van Heerden, “Die Sogenaamde Adenomiome.”

34 Van Heerden, Die 16de Koppie, 112.

35 Van Heerden, Kerssnuitsels.

36 Hosking, “Hidden Desire.”

37 Vincent, “A Cake of Soap.”

38 Van Heerden, Die 16de Koppie, 124–128.

39 “Moontlikheid van Borskanker.”

40 Van Heerden, Die 16de Koppie, 145–146.

41 Van Heerden, Die 16de Koppie, 145; my translation.

42 Van Heerden, Die 16de Koppie, 145; my translation.

43 Van Heerden, Die 16de Koppie, 146; my translation.

44 Van Heerden, Die 16de Koppie, 121; my translation.

45 Steyn, “Gesuiwerde Nasionalis,” 34; my translation.

46 Steyn, “Gesuiwerde Nasionalis,” 34; my translation.

47 Steyn, “Gesuiwerde Nasionalis,” 27; my translation.

48 Van Heerden, Waarom, 6; my translation.

49 Van Heerden, Waarom, 4; my translation.

50 Van Heerden, Waarom, 4–5; my translation.

51 Van Heerden, Waarom, 6; my translation.

52 Van Heerden, Waarom, 6–7; my translation.

53 Van Heerden, Waarom, 8; my translation.

54 Van Heerden, Fascisme, 5; my translation.

55 Van Heerden, Fascisme, 13; my translation.

56 Clingman, Bram Fischer.

57 Rothmann, “Liewe Alba.”

58 Rothmann, “Liewe Nell” (“Dear Nell, received your letter”).

59 Bouwer, “Die Avonture.”

60 Bouwer, “Die Avonture,” April 13.

61 “’n Vroulike Geneesheer Vertel van Petaljes met Manspasiënte.” See Bouwer, “Die Avonture,” May 25.

62 Bouwer, “Die Avonture,” May 25.

63 Bouwer, “Die Avonture,” May 25.

64 Van Heerden, Geslagsregister.

65 Van Reenen, “Van Heerden, Anna Petronella.”

66 Lutge Coullie et al., Selves in Question, 49.

67 Smith-Rosenberg, “Discourses,” 278.

68 Van Heerden, Die 16de Koppie, 86.