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‘The Girl About Town’: Discussions of Modernity and Female Youth in Drum Magazine, 1951–1970

Johnson, Rachel E.

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Abstract

This article examines the trope of the ‘modern miss’ in Drum magazine 1951–1970 as a locus for debate over South African urban modernity. At the centre of Drum’s African urbanity was a debate between a progressive, positively ‘modern’ existence and an attendant fear of moral and social ‘breakdown’ in the apartheid city. The trope of the ‘modern miss’ drew upon both discourses. Drum’s fascination with the ‘modern miss’ reached a peak in the years 1957–1963, during which time she appeared prominently in the magazine as a symbolic pioneer of changing gender and generational relationships. However, this portrayal continued to coexist alongside the image of young women as the victims of moral degeneration. The ‘modern miss’ was increasingly differentiated from adult women within Drum’s pages, which distanced her from the new space won by political activists. By examining constructions of young womanhood, this article points to the gendering of ‘youth’ at the intersection of commercial print culture and shifting social relations in mid‐twentieth‐century South Africa. It is also suggested that understanding the social configurations of Drum’s modernity illuminates the gendered and generational responses of formal political movements as they conducted their own concurrent debates.

Citation

Johnson, R. E. (2009). ‘The Girl About Town’: Discussions of Modernity and Female Youth in Drum Magazine, 1951–1970. Social Dynamics, 35(1), 36-50. https://doi.org/10.1080/02533950802666899

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date Feb 25, 2009
Deposit Date Sep 15, 2014
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Social Dynamics
Print ISSN 0253-3952
Electronic ISSN 1940-7874
Publisher Taylor and Francis Group
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 35
Issue 1
Pages 36-50
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/02533950802666899
Keywords Female youth, Drum magazine, Print media, Representations, Commercial youth culture 1951–1970.

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