The Social Construction of Gender: Historically Changing Meanings of (White) Feminity and Masculinity

The Social Construction of Gender:
Historically Changing Meanings of (White) Feminity and Masculinity 1910- 1980 ¹

The inspiration for this paper came to me, whilst I was working through old editions of the Natal Mercury newspaper, as part of a research project on the historical development of Durban. Personally, I happened to be interested in gender:²its social construction, social meaning and changes through time. Consequently I also noted down anything in the sample of newspapers I was examining that appeared to say something about gender. I ended up with notes on over 250 advertisements and all relevant newspaper articles. The more familiar I became with the material, the more it struck me that the contemporary feminist critique of 'sexism in the media' - or women as 'sex commodities' is not particularly relevant for the period prior to 1965-70. Having previously imagined (naively so), that 'women' must have always been portrayed as 'sex objects', this new insight stimulated me to further investigate how women were in fact portrayed in the earlier years and how and why such a portrayal may have changed. It was also clear that I would not only have to look at women, but at men as well, and how the two genders were portrayed in relation to each other.

In this paper, I begin to look at these questions in more detail. I must observe at the outset that any understanding of 'gender, has to occur concurrently with an understanding of how it intersects with other social 'constructs' like race and class. Time constraints have unfortunately limited me at this stage to examining only 'whites'. The Natal Mercury, for example, is a newspaper which primarily reflects white liberal capitalist interests in a general sense. I have assumed therefore that the dominant media image portrayed, related moat closely to the lives of the white bourgeoisie.

I have chosen to use the advertisements as empirical data for two main reasons. Firstly, they provide a certain continuity of the period. Secondly, they are selling us something else besides consumer goods: in providing us with a structure in which we, and those goods, are interchangeable, they are selling us ourselves'.³It is precisely because advertising expresses a wider social and cultural world than can be ac counted for in terms of specific messages about specific products⁴, that I think it is a useful source for investigating historically changing socio- meanings.

The Natal Mercury is one of the oldest daily newspapers in the country and for most of the century had the largest circulation of all news media in Natal. Before the advent of contemporary women 's ⁵magazines in the 1960s and TV in the 1970s, newspapers were the most widely read print media. For this reason newspapers serve as the best example of advertising throughout the period.⁶Although the paper itself experienced many changes as an industry - its ownership remained in the hands of the Robinson family - a bastion of support for British colonialism and later 'liberal' capitalism. The advantages of this continuity seemed important in selecting the adverts I would use as empirical data.

For my second important source of data, I have had to rely primarily on the South African Bureau of Census Statistics. I have used the latter to calculate percentages of labour employment (by race and by sex) for the period 1910-1980. For all their inaccuracies and problems I have nevertheless attempted to develop a sense of the movement and flax in women's and men's 'economic employment' realities for this period.

Using these adverts and statistics as my main source material, I have sought to explore in greater detail, what for me is one of the most significant insights of feminism and feminist theory in the past 15 years; namely, the conceptual clarification of the distinction between 'sex' and 'gender. In moving beyond an abstract, theoretical recognition of this distinction, I have three aims in writing the following paper. Firstly, I wish to illustrate that gender is socially constructed. To do this, I use various adverts as examples which highlight different social meanings and defining characteristics of feminity and masculinity during the period 1910-1980. (That is, the fact that these meanings are not constant or fixed in time, implies that they cannot be 'natural'\biological and must therefore be social and constructed in relation to particular social formations.) Secondly, I intersect these ideological portrayals of women\feminity and men\masculinity with the statistical data, and knowledge of the general socio-economic conditions, to explore some of the complex interplays between changes in the social meanings and social construction of gender on the one hand, and changes in the socio-economic conditions that constitute individuals' lives, on the other. That is, why is this image what it is? why does it change in the way that it does? How does this transformation occur?

Finally, I raise some points about why it is imperative to study gender social relations in conjunction with capitalist (and in South Africa - racist) social relations. why are these (gender) power relations so important? what effect do they have on the people's (especially women's) lives?

In the following two sections I firstly contextualise my work in relation to other analyses of advertising and of 'women in the media'. I then refer to select advert illustrations, relevant theory and statistical data to outline the macro trends and dominant features of the period under investigation.

Most of the literature dealing with the analysis of 'cultural' and/or 'ideological' production is concerned with the analysis of texts. How meaning is produced within texts; how biological individuals became social subjects; how those subjects are fixed in positions of knowledge in relation to language and representation and how they are interpellated within specific ideological discourses.⁶

The available literature that concerns itself with 'women in the media', does not as far as I am aware, provide any historical analyses of why the current social presentations of women and men should be what they are. Rather, it tends to focus primarily on the contemporary period (e.g. 1965 onwards) and on adverts in so-called women's magazines. Goffman looks at 'gender' in a relational sense (ie. women and men), asserting that gender specifications are culturally prescribed and produced- His work nevertheless, remains descriptive rather than explanatory and is confined to latter day illustrations.⁷Millum concentrates primarily on images of women only, and thus on what it means to be 'feminine' - but again he is not concerned with the historical transformation of these im ages as much as developing a classificatory system for deciphering such images.⁹Ceulemans and Fauconnier review research materials relating to the image, role and social conditions of women only. They do move beyond description but their study remains necessarily brief and again limited to recent times.¹⁰

With specific reference to advertisements, Williamson, for example, argues that they ‘provide a structure which is capable of transforming the language of objects to that of people and vice versa'.¹¹In her book she examines firstly, how this structure functions, and secondly what the systems and things are that it transforms. These 'referent systems', which provide the adverts with their basic 'meaning' material, draw their significance from areas outside of advertising¹². Williamson's acute perceptions are useful in decoding advertisements in general, as artifacts of capitalism, but other than scattered references to gender and sexuality (Cf pages; 57, 168-170), she is mainly concerned with 'deconstructing' the internal workings of the adverts themselves. ¹³ Her analysis is cogent in its explanation of how adverts come to be so effective, and their role in 'constructing' consumers. Winship expands on Williamson to discuss 'some elements of an ideology of sexuality as an important aspect of feminity in contemporary advertising.'¹⁴Her analysis is excellent for its investigation of how femininity is contradictorily constructed and of how it is masculinised ‘by the commodity form to create a dependence both on men and commodities.'¹⁵She also elaborates the modes in which we, as readers, are inescapably ensnared in the signification processes and in those modes of femininity'.¹⁶

Frenkel et al is one specifically South African example which proposes a critical theory of sexism in advertising.¹⁷Again, their concern is contemporary and tends to focus mainly on women and their role as consumers in capitalist society. Their study specifically focuses on the purpose and working of 'family' ideology, why the ideology is so pervasive, and how adverts function conservatively in relation to it. 'Family' ideology then is their specific starting point rather than gender relations per se. In consequence they do not illustrate the historical transformation of such gender relations to explain how 'sexism in advertising' ends up as it does today.

In summary, the authors examined above are all primarily concerned with contemporary advertising. When their central focus is 'sexism' it is either done in a descriptive mode, or else tends to look mainly at women rather than at gender. The bulk of the analytical literature has been particularly interested in the internal structure of advertising and how it works. In my paper I have assumed what these authors have proved. Namely, that advertising utilizes aspects of the 'real world' in its marketing of commodities, such that these aspects are re-presented to us in a new image. An image which is produced in the sign system itself. As such, I acknowledge the importance of under- standing the increasing sophistication of the internal system of the ad verts themselves. For example: technique, lay-out, graphic-text, juxtaposition etc., need to be considered in relation to changing technology vis-a-vis the newspaper medium in particular and the printing and graphic industries in general. However, it is on the transformations in the meanings and portrayal of social actors, that I have chosen to concentrate my analysis in this paper. That is, I have been more interested in looking at the historical development of aspects of the adverts' 'referent systems'.¹⁸Those meanings and Systems external to, yet drawn into the work of the advert itself, have been the object of my concern, rather than the semiotics of how adverts come to be as effective as they are.

While other theorists such as John Herger have argued for the necessity of focusing on advertisements in a historicallyspecific way, my research is innovative in the South African context¹⁹ My focus on historical changes in social meanings that are both reflected and created in the adverts over a seventy year time period, allow me to explore precise ly what has led to the 'contemporary' images. The latter can then be seen in a broader context, as representations which are linked to historically constituted real relations'.²⁰The image of 'women as sex objects/commodities' would not then be seen in isolation and as the only image we have of women in the media.

In this section I emphasize in my discussion, the changes over time in the social relations of gender. That is, I have not ordered my material according to a variety of themes (eg. woman as 'mother'; housewife'; 'sex-object' or man as husband'; breadwinner'; 'macho he-man'), or tasks that different people perform, or produce commodities that include any of these. Rather, I incorporate all these different aspects of what it means (in advertisements) to be a woman/feminine or a man/masculine into a more general interpretation of gender as a social power relation. I am less interested in the fact that certain behaviours or tasks seem to remain constant over the period, than that they are 'presented' in a new way, that the material conditions and social relations under which they occur are different.

Game and Pringle for instance, use the dynamic nature of the sexual division of labour to illustrate that while the content of women's work and men's work is subject to change, it is the distinction between their work that remains fixed.²¹So that gender 'is not just about difference but about power: the domination of men and the subordination of women. This power relation is maintained by the creation of distinctions between male and female spheres - and it is the reproduction of these distinctions which accounts for the persistence of the so-called 'naturalness' of it all.'²²In the following section, I attempt to illustrate how this power relation is maintained during the 70-year period I have isolated for analysis.

For purposes of clarity and 'manageability'. I have divided the seventy year period into three broad eras - 1910-1980; 1930-1960; 1960-1980. This division is not intended as a fixed periodisation. Rather, I see a metamorphosis occurring whereby the contrasts between the first and the last eras are most visible. These two 'eras' will therefore be discussed in the greatest detail. Illustrations from the transitional period will hopefully provide a sense of the movement and fluctuation that occurs with respect to gender meanings and social r4ations. Factors which I have considered important in my discussion include: (a) the nature of household labour (eg. production vs consumption); (b) the relationship between sexuality and procreation; (c) the legal, political and economic position of women in society at any one specific point in time; (d) gender struggles and changes in capitalist development. It may be useful to observe at the outset, that the averts I'm using as illustrations for my argument were largely controlled and managed by men, as was the Natal Mercury itself. ²³

There are a number of significant defining characteristics that can be identified with respect to the first twenty years of the period under discussion - 1910-1930. One of the most glaring features is that many white middle class women who were married, at this time, were involved in 'productive' activities in the home. Even if they had black domestic workers (at this stage male), they would still have to be involved in producing household goods for consumption. To a large extent, items like clothes, jams, bottled preserves etc. were produced by the housewife.

Without certain technological aids like irons, vacuum cleaners etc., general household labour, for example, cleaning, ironing and washing of clothes was difficult and was seen as 'hard-work'. This labour was acknowledged as labour (in the 1911 census 74,8% of white women, excluding 'dependents' and 'indefinites'; were classified under occupation' as performing household duties). It was not invisible, even though it was never considered for, or calculated as part of the official statistics on the economy. Production of household goods was productive labour in the sense that it produced use-value for consumption in the home. It was not, however, productive labour within the context of the capitalist mode of production. That is, the labour of women who work outside the market is unpaid and does not produce surplus-value or profit.²⁴

The social value attached to this labour because it was hard and skilled) gave these women a certain kind of status or respect. While they never had political status or rights (ie. the franchise) they performed a very definite role, which was seen as important. At the same time men also had a specific role - namely that of breadwinner and head of household. Marriage was overtly a labour contract. Gittins quotes Leonard who argues:

The woman was almost an extension of her husband's being. Even though she derived a certain worth from the hard household labour and productive activity that she engaged in, as well as her ability to bear children and 'mother, her identity was subsumed under her husband's. In this way her position was relatively secure. That is, she didn't need to 'sell' herself via her beauty so much, as via her function, as it were. This clear definition of roles, tasks, duties, and obligations was by and large accepted at that time and there was little blatant challenge between women and men.

The nature and duty of household labour is clearly visible in the adverts (A1; A2; A3). In none of my illustrations, do women and men appear in the same advert, even though a certain product may be indirectly aimed at both genders. (Eg; A4). References to women neither show them in the home, as housewife (eg: A6); mother (eg: A7) or else concerned with beauty (eg: A8) and appearance (A5). While references to men always show them outside the home, as 'brain' workers who suffer from 'excessive mental strin' (eg A9i); civilized (eg. A9ii) or involved in business or leisure (eg: A10). The 'connection' between women and men is somehow assumed and taken for granted. It is never made explicit or blatant in the adverts. Furthermore, it is interesting to observe that while an important aspect of the relationship between procreation and sexuality has always ‘been posed as much closer for women than men', at this stage the two were virtually synonymous.

Discussions in the newspaper relating to 'women' and sexuality, morality, contraception and birth control clinics appear with increasing intensity only from the late l920s into the early l930s.²⁶ A scarcity of adequate contraceptives; a certain 'reverential' attitude towards sex and sexuality and a widespread ignorance and lack of 'free' discussion around these subjects meant that women's sexuality was primarily defined as 'reproductive' (ie. with a certain function), rather than as something separate in and of itself (say for 'pleasure' for instance). Ironically, ideologies of 'motherhood' and 'domesticity' 'admit to no sexuality even though premised on reproductive sexuality'.²⁷

Moreover, while adverts for face creams and soaps (for eg.) emphasised a woman's beauty and even vanity (eg A4; A8), they had qualities which would ostensibly enhance her 'purity'; ‘freshness'; 'naturalness' or 'clean looks'. The associations of 'natural' with woman were at that stage very clearly linked to her reproductive capacities, as adverts for Feluna Pills show (eg. A11).

The equivalence of women's sexuality with procreation meant that women were viewed primarily as reproducers. They carried and bore children they reared them (as mothers) and they made sure that the goods necessary for daily maintenance and re-generation of the labour force (potential children and current husbands) were provided. There was very little opportunity to view these women as individuals in their own right. Their economic/productive functions as mothers and/or domestic housekeepers was set firmly within the marriage labour contract. What it meant to be a woman or a man was more aligned with practical roles and functions rather than personal sexual identities.

In sum then, the home was in many senses still a 'productive' unit.. Although the development of capitalism generated an increased schism between household productive labour and re-production (biological and generational) on the one hand, and so-called economically active productive labour (in the factories and offices) on the other, there was a strong material basis for the middle-class 'family' form to remain. Firstly, relatively few women worked for wages (only 15,3% of all enumerated white women in Durban were classified as employed in 1911). Secondly, gender role divisions within the 'family' were largely unchallenged. Thirdly, the economic foundations of marriage were clear and in large measure necessary (in fact marriage was seen as a trade) and the widespread commoditization of goods and services that we need for our survival was not yet available). Fourthly, there was a virtual synonymy of procreation and sexuality which specified women as primarily 'reproducers'. Fifthly, women had no political status or rights.

While the family may have served emotional and sexual needs of its members, its economic basis was blatant, necessary and acknowledged. Gender power and social relations were established therefore, in terms of the clearly demarcated social roles and functions as defined by the (social) division of labour based on (biological) sex. This sexual division of labour then meant that women/femininity was defined in terms of 'motherhood' (reproductive sexuality and nurturance); 'domesticity' (household production and maintenance labour); and a '1ook' that was ‘pure'; natural'; ‘fresh' and ultimately demure. So a white middle-class feminine woman, would be both gentle and capable; 'soft', dainty and accepting of her position, function, role and duty as a wife and as a mother.

By contrast, white middle-class men/masculinity were characterized as 'civilized'; 'rational'; 'gentlemanly' and providers for women. Gender social relations were clearly demarcated and not obscured. Woman's place was firmly within the home and men's within the world. They both had definite roles to fulfill which determined their worth and status - yet men were the providers and household heads - in control. The letters written by a Byrne settler to her sister in the United Kingdom confirm this definition of white women in the immediate post-colonial period in Natal. The men, however, were not only required to be the perfect English gentlemen as described above, but also 'pioneering' and 'rugged'.

During these twenty years, however, there were significant changes in the South African political economy, which did not leave gender relations untouched. while educational and employment/economic opportunities were still fairly restrictive for white women, there were signs of change. Industrial growth daring World War I, provided increased employment possibilities for women and by the mid-twenties clerical and typing work had outstripped teaching as the largest area of white female employment' (see Table I). More women were working in sales and as waitresses, tailors, machinists or telephonists. The clothing and textile industries also demanded 'women' workers (see Table II).

TABLE 1a No of White Women as % of all Employed Whites in Natal in 1911
Professional (Mostly Teachers) Domestic Commercial Agriculture Industry Unspecified	5.1 % 3.6 % 1.9 % 0.6 % 3.7 % 1.1%
Source: UG 32ed 1912

TABLE 1b No of White Women as % of all White Women in Durban and Suburbs in 1926
Clothing and Textiles Commerce and Financial Professions Household duties	0.02 % 0.10 % 0.01 % 64.70 %
Source: UG 27 1930

TABLE II No of White Women as % of all Workers in Textiles
1923-1924 1924-1925 1926-1927	14.5 % 34.1 % 44.6 %
Source: 9th, 10th and 11th industrial census

Those women from the more privileged strata of society, who had leisure time and access to education had begun (as early as 1902) to organise as suffragists. It was only when more (white) women had moved into greater public employment and higher education that the struggle for the enfranchisement of women increased in momentum. Although the local suffrage movement was closely linked to the changing position of women and the international suffragists, the specific timing and the scope of the legislation that finally 'gave' (white) South African women the right to vote had less to do with women's rights than with the removal of black rights (i.e.. it was expedient for the government of the day. Even though the suffrage movement in South Africa was a racist one that was concerned to protect its members privileges as part of the ruling class, as subordinate members of that class they had waged a specifically gender struggle. They had fought as women and had challenged their defined status as second class or inferior citizens.

Nevertheless, white women's greater public/political presence, in combination with the growing commoditization of household labour; the greater numbers of women in wage employment and the growing aware ness and discussion of birth control all had a significant impact on the ways in which the dominant ideology (in this case as seen in newspaper media) came to present the relationship between the genders.

Last updated by Michael Breare on 20 January, 2003