The Modern Girl around the World: A Research Agenda and Preliminary Findings

Our research collaboration examines how the Modern Girl emerged as a global phenomenon in the first half of the twentieth century. By wearing provocative fashions and pursuing romantic love, Modern Girls everywhere appeared to disregard the roles of dutiful daughter, wife and mother. We develop the Modern Girl as a heuristic category that allows new insights into forces of globalisation and manifestations of gendered modernity. Through a case study of cosmetics advertising in China, India, South Africa, Germany and the United States, we show that the Modern Girl in each locale was shaped through multidirectional citations of elements from elsewhere, through transnational processes of racialisation and through distinct articulations of nationalism.