Safe to Violate: The Role of Gender in the Necklacing of Women During the South African People’s War (1985–1990)

Acts of necklacing during the most repressive years of apartheid have typically been located within the politically driven ‘black-on-black’ rubric. This leaves open the question of what role gender played in the necklacing of some women during the most turbulent years of the struggle against apartheid. Using the theoretical foundation of black feminist consciousness, which exposes the layered sources of oppression, as well as gender performativity theory, the central contribution of the present research is to elucidate how vulnerability to accusations of collaborating, and the form of punishments for women, were recurrently gender-dependent. By analysing why and how women were necklaced, and linking these acts to the broader context of rampant violence against women, this article reveals that the murders were the consequence of a particular expression of masculinity that sought to create specific subjects out of women. Against male-orientated portrayals of the struggle, the article sheds light on the unique precarities that black women navigated during apartheid.