For over forty years, at the turn of this century, the white settlers of Southern Rhodesia devoted considerable energy to the discussion and the regulation of inter-racial sexual relations. The settlers' worries about maintaining their position in power were expressed, in part, in the periodic outbreaks of 'black peril' hysteria, a term which well-captures white fears about the threat that African men were thought to represent to white women. Although voluntary sexual encounters between white women and black men were prohibited from 1903 onwards, no such prohibition existed for white men in their relations with black women. The white women made several attempts to have legislation passed prohibiting such liasons, and failed largely because in doing so they were perceived to be challenging the authority of the white men. The regulation of interracial sexual intercourse thus served to reinforce the white male domination of Rhodesian society.
Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.61072 |
Date | January 1991 |
Creators | Gombay, Katherine |
Publisher | McGill University |
Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
Language | English |
Detected Language | English |
Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
Format | application/pdf |
Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of History.) |
Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
Relation | alephsysno: 001274356, proquestno: AAIMM74670, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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