Race and gender discourse in the South African Lady’s Pictorial and Home Journal and selected books reviewed (1911-1919)

Abstract

This study seeks to explore the relationship between gender and race within South Africa during the period between January 1911 and December 1919, when gender and race related rights were in flux. It focuses specifically on the social construct of gender amongst white English-speaking South African women and how the discourse on gender interrelated with the discourse on race and race relations in South Africa during this period. The relationship between gender and race is analysed by focusing on The South African Lady’s Pictorial and Home Journal, a women’s magazine published in South Africa (1910-1936). Additionally, texts external but related to the magazine, namely 35 of the books reviewed in the magazine, are analysed. Thereby the gender and race discourse identified and analysed in the reviewed books is linked to the discourse that circulated in the magazine to gain insight into how these had changed over the ten-year period. As a literary analysis the study views portrayals of gender and race not as a reflection of reality but rather as social constructs. These discourses are viewed as constructed in reaction to certain changing power relations within their socio-historical context. The aim is to identify trends and changes in the discourses of race and gender and to identify possible relationships between them.