'To raise a hornet's nest': the effect of early resistance to passes for women in South Africa on the pass laws in colonial Zimbabwe

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Periodical article

Title:	'To raise a hornet's nest': the effect of early resistance to passes for women in South Africa on the pass laws in colonial Zimbabwe
Author:	Barnes, T.
Year:	1989
Periodical:	Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity
Issue:	5
Pages:	40-52
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	South Africa Zimbabwe
Subjects:	influx control women
External link:	https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10130950.1989.9675063
Abstract:	African women in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), unlike their male relatives, never had to carry the compulsory passes, or registration certificates, which were known as 'situpas' or 'chitupas'. There were repeated calls in the 1920s and 1930s from many people in Southern Rhodesia who felt that the State should curtail women's freedom by forcing them to carry passes. The State consistently refused to issue such certificates to women. This paper examines one of the most important reasons for this refusal: the great resistance to passes for women in the Transvaal, South Africa, especially on the Rand, in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The perceptions of the Southern Rhodesian officials of this resistance and a reluctance to create a situation which might provoke similar resistance in their own areas went a long way towards convincing them that passes for women would be a losing proposition. Bibliogr., notes, ref.