Masculinity, matrimony and generation: reconfiguring patriarchy in Drum 1951-1983
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Date
2008
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Abstract
In this article I discuss some of the ways in which Drum tended to ascribe
‘modernity’ to particular practices and processes in opposition to other practices and
processes portrayed as ‘traditional’. In mid-twentieth-century South Africa, dominant
discourses tended to signal (white) male adulthood through independent decision
making alongside financial autonomy. In contrast African discourses tended to signal
male adulthood through proximity to family members, through respect for age and
seniority and through deference to the praxis of ‘tradition’. In the representations of
black men in its pages, Drum magazine negotiated a somewhat disorderly path
through these competing racialised discourses. I suggest that Drum’s claim that
black males were indeed men was made through highlighting and condoning
practices that demonstrated similarities and continuities between subordinate black
and dominant white versions of manhood. In challenging the racial discourse the
magazine paradoxically found itself simultaneously reinforcing western rather than
African versions of manhood.
Description
Keywords
African masculinity, Identity formation, Westernisation, Drum (Magazine), Patriarchy
Citation
Clowes, Lindsay (2008) Masculinity, matrimony and generation: reconfiguring patriarchy in Drum 1951-1983. Journal of Southern African Studies, 34(1):179-192