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

Johnson, Rachel E.

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: Aug 25, 2015
• 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.
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1445424