Midway through the 20th century in Nigeria, the West African print media played a major role in shaping a new image of what constituted normative modern womanhood and girlhood. What was a “good girl” to Western Africans?
The “Milady’s Bower” column in the West African Pilot newspaper helped establish the cultural ideal of a modern woman of that time. Its columnist, “Miss Silva,” advised women on their new urban gender identity. She suggested the new type of femininity be different from traditional patriarchal society (Aderinto, 2015).
In mid-20th-century West Africa, love was still gendered, but in a new way. The key piece of advice regarding gendered love was that women did not experience and did not express love in the same manner as men did. The common belief was that women in romantic love are more passionate and dedicated than men. Their biological differences and social gender expectations formed their female type of love.
An African girl must be a “good girl”, not a “bad girl”
The West African public media attempted to portray a dichotomy between “good” and “bad” modern girls.
A good girl would follow the path of social respectability. She’d be educated, employed, independent, and financially self-sufficient. She’d love a responsible man. Miss Silva was right when she said that girls were more likely to date respectable men if they went to school and worked for money.
For instance, one young woman, who worked as a receptionist for a “well-known department” in Lagos, wrote to Miss Silva that several men approached her for a relationship because of her social standing and education.
A modern woman should marry a decent, respectable man. Then, she should extol the virtues of modern African womanhood. She should participate in church and community activities.
A West African woman must be self-assured and reserved. She must avoid bad habits such as smoking, drinking, and wearing “charred hair.” She has to follow the modern cultural norms of socialization. At the parties, she must behave in accordance with ballroom etiquette and never engage in “nefarious,” “scandalous,” or “demoralizing [dance]… the sight of which can make a spectator shudder.”
The Girl’s Pride in African Womanhood
In her lifestyle and behavior, the modern girl must be neither too British nor too African. How Miss Silva wrote in reference to Europeans:
“We must try to emulate them. [T]hat is not a bad thing in itself, but we must do so only in things that are good and beneficial to us.”
Keeping a careful balance between combining European and African cultural traditions is required for a good contemporary girl. This path helped educate young women to be excellent African women.
“Miss Silva” and her writers attempted to achieve two distinct goals that sometimes clashed. First, they wanted the modern girl to challenge the established gender hierarchy, especially the idea that women should be at the bottom of the social, economic, and political ladders. Second, they told her to keep those “charms” and traits that made her more “feminine.”
The West African Girl’s Pride of Femininity
“Milady’s Bower” said that a modern girl shouldn’t give up her femininity for attitudes and actions that make her look like a man. Miss Silva didn’t think there was anything wrong with women working in politics, which is usually seen as a field for men. However, she didn’t want women to lose their femininity as they tried to change gender norms. This advice was clearer in one specific article that she wrote. She suggested to West African girls that they should try
“to be modest and not play the rough masculine part which spoils a great deal of feminine charm … She will realize how charming it is to be feminine instead of trying to be masculine, because a girl trying to play the latter part will not merely hurt her pride but humble her very existence into the bargain.”
(quoted by Aderinto, 2015, p.494).
In another article, ‘Masculine Girls’, she discouraged West African girls from being masculine, which, in her view, looks rather like a “bad” girl. For instance, Miss Silva argued that “only masculine girls will smoke.” She commented that smoking was a bad habit that only men and people in the West had and that modern girls shouldn’t pick it up. She disliked smoking so much that she said girls who smoked should be “eliminated from the circles of good society by all means.” (quoted by Aderinto, 2015, p.494).