The "Shop Girl" and White Nationalism: White Working-class Women and Femininity in Johannesburg Department Stores, 1930s–1970s.

Based on media stories and union campaigns, this paper tracks the discourses from the 1930s to the 1970s around the 'shop girl' in Johannesburg. It argues that the shop girl was a figure of white femininity that complicates the now extensive literature on white women in South Africa through its repr...

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Publicado en:International Labor & Working-Class History Vol. 104; no. 46; pp. 55 - 77
Autor principal: Kenny, Bridget
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Cambridge University Press Fall2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        atl: The "Shop Girl" and White Nationalism: White Working-class Women and Femininity in Johannesburg Department Stores, 1930s–1970s.
      aug:
        au: Kenny, Bridget
        affil: Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
      su:
        White women
        Department stores
        Working class white people
        Femininity
        Class differences
        Women consumers
        White nationalism
        Johannesburg (South Africa)
        South Africa
      sug:
        subj:
          Johannesburg (South Africa)
          South Africa
          White women
          Department stores
          Working class white people
          Femininity
          Class differences
          Women consumers
          White nationalism
      keyword:
        Class
        Consumption
        Service work
        Shop girl
      ab: Based on media stories and union campaigns, this paper tracks the discourses from the 1930s to the 1970s around the 'shop girl' in Johannesburg. It argues that the shop girl was a figure of white femininity that complicates the now extensive literature on white women in South Africa through its reproduction of the enduring tension of class difference. Through archival research and interviews, the paper shows how the 'shop girl' contributed to an ideology of white nationalism, focused more traditionally around motherhood and domesticity. The embodied labor of white women workers in Johannesburg both relied on their femininity and ensured that the affective labor of service work was a site of contradiction and contestation with white middle class women consumers. Class difference could therefore be contained within the semiotics of white nationhood through the site of consumption and retailing.
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      src: R
    language: English
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