SSR #2 on ‘The Truth About Modern Girls’ in Dance Hall & Picture Palace

Complete citation:

Matthews, Jill. "The Truth About Modern Girls." Dance Hall & Picture Palace: Sydney's Romance with Modernity, Currency Press, 2005, pp. 61-99.

 

Image Credit:

www.amazon.com/Dance-Hall-Picture-Palace-Modernity/dp/0868197556, accessed 5 October 2020

 

Key Words:

Modern girl; The board; Economy; Truth; Consumption; Modernity; Feminine; Unfeminine; Income; Jazz; Dance; Fashion

 

Brief Overview:

An examination of historic attitudes conflicting around ‘The Modern Girl’. Beginning with The Modern Girl’s introduction in the early 20^th century, and into the power struggle between women’s right to Modern identity and the pre-established patriarchal economy.

 

Summary of key points:

1. In chapter 2, Matthews begins defining ‘the truth about’ the early 20^th century ‘Modern Girl’ by depicting an initial cultural confusion over her introduction.
2. Matthews describes the pull and tug between rumors, patriarchal stereotypes, accommodations for social economy, and the constant struggle ‘modern’ women faced to redefine their autonomy and independence in a world where patriarchal cultural norms were drastically shifting.
3. The concept of women working outside domestic service was fairly new, and women’s income was set at half of a man’s income – leaving many women working to gain independence on the border of poverty. Women were expected to marry as young adults and rely on a man.
4. The young women and their representing unions would fight for women’s income rights against biased investigation tactics from The Board of Trade – who were constructing a new economy. This board consisted of middle-aged, white, male legal professionals. Very little input was accepted from female authority in this investigation. When combined with an entirely male commissioner panel this left The Board out of touch and favor with the needs of ‘The Modern Woman’.
5. Regardless of the obstacles from the Old-World patriarchal mindsets, ‘The Modern Woman’ endured to enjoy herself in dancing culture, cinema culture, and commercial consumption. In the process she drove forward the forgery of a new system combining ‘moral economy’, ‘gender order’, commercial ‘consumption’ and job economy. New service jobs, consumption opportunities, and culture opened because of her. 

 

Important Quotations:

“From the end of the nineteenth and into the twentieth century, much of the popular discussion of modernity was couched in terms of an always serious, sometimes jocular game of ‘the truth about the modern girl’.” (65).

“The young woman was not only the central figure of this international discourse of modernity, but a real presence in the modernizing cities of the world. Young women created the modern world by their work and through their leisure. They produced and reproduced it, consuming the new commodities that they made and sold. They conjured its presence by immersing themselves in its collective dream at the picture show and in fan magazines. Through the many interactions of their daily lives, they made themselves into ‘modern girls’. They looked modern, they behaved in modern ways, they had modern relationships.” (67-68).

“The Board comprised six Commissioners, all men, all white, middle-aged, upper-middle-class lawyers.” (71).

“Well into the twentieth century Australia’s rulers continued to treat the national economy as comprising primarily the male-dominated pastoral, agricultural and manufacturing industries. But as the economy modernized, its emphasis shifted towards the service sector where increasing numbers of women found paid employment. Women had long been employed in the older form of service – domestic service in private houses. Now they moved out of the home and into the commercial service economy.” (83-84).

“In Sydney’s world of popular culture, work and leisure were as inextricably intertwined as the limbs of young men and women on the dance floor and movie screen… A modern social economy of pleasure and necessity established itself in the new public sphere of popular culture where the threads of production, service and consumption were woven together to form the fabric in which the modern girl wrapped herself. Simultaneously, a new moral economy emerged, and a new gender order.” (88).

 

Usefulness to our group topic or individual project:

This chapter can be used for context around the consumerism and commercial culture that changed Western society into the modern capitalistic market that we know today. In this extract Matthew’s outlines how the boost to modern consumerism was largely driven by ‘The Modern Girl’ and modern culture. Consumerist culture impacted the sales and performance of magazines.

This reading can also provide context to the oppression faced by women who were forging an autonomous female identity under the weight of dying 19^th century values. Matthew’s shows The Modern Girl transforming society by seeking freedom and ‘fun’, along with her own established identity that was ‘Modern’. This transformation was pioneered despite resistance from those in power left over from the former system. This struggle can be referenced by academic works with a feminist focus.