The Masculine Modern Woman: Pushing Boundaries in the Swedish Popular Media of the 1920s

265 Pages·2019·5.487 MB·English

by  Jenny Ingemarsdotter

The Masculine Modern Woman
This book takes a fresh approach to one of the most popular cultural
symbols of modernity in the 1920s—the “masculine” modern woman.
Uncovering discourses on female masculinity in interwar Sweden, a
nation that struggled to become modern but not decadent, this study
examines cultural representations and debates across several arenas
including fashion, film, sports, automobility, medicine and literature.
Drawing on rich empirical material, this book traces not only how the
masculine modern woman reshaped the imaginary space of what women
could be, do and desire, but also how this space was eventually shrunk in
order to fit into an emerging vision of a family-oriented “people’s home.”
Jenny Ingemarsdotter holds a PhD in the History of Science and Ideas
from Uppsala University and has recently concluded a postdoctoral
fellowship funded by the Swedish Research Council, hosted by the Centre
for Gender Research at Uppsala University, Sweden, and the Centre for
the Study of Sexuality and Culture, University of Manchester, UK.
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The Masculine Modern Woman
Pushing Boundaries in the Swedish Popular Media of the 1920s
Jenny Ingemarsdotter
For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com
The Masculine Modern
Woman
Pushing Boundaries in the Swedish
Popular Media of the 1920s
Jenny Ingemarsdotter
First published 2019
by Routledge
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© 2019 Taylor & Francis
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Ingemarsdotter, Jenny, author.
Title: The Masculine Modern Woman : Pushing Boundaries in the
Swedish Popular Media of the 1920s / By Jenny Ingemarsdotter.
Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Routledge/Taylor &
Francis Group, 2019. | Series: Routledge research in gender and
history ; volume 34 | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2018046028 (print) | LCCN 2018047673
(ebook) | ISBN 9780429024399 | ISBN 9780367110260 (hbk) |
ISBN 9780429024399 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Women—Sweden—History—20th century. |
Masculinity in popular culture—Sweden. | Sex role—Sweden—
History—20th century.
Classification: LCC HQ1687 (ebook) | LCC HQ1687 .I54 2019
(print) | DDC 305.4209485—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018046028
ISBN: 978-0-367-11026-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-02439-9 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
List of Figures vi
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
PART I
Telling Stories: Film, Fashion and “Funny Complications” 33
1 The M Word: Modern or Masculine? 35
2 “La Garçonne is Dead!—Long Live Femininity!” 66
PART II
Changing Stories: Negotiating Masculinities in Sports
and Automobility 99
3 “What We Have Learned from Our Sporting Ladies”:
Making Sense of the Female Athlete 101
4 The Chauffeuse Who Wished for a Racecar: Stories of
Masculinized Women Behind the Wheel 141
PART III
Unfinished Stories: Queer Female Masculinities 189
5 In No Certain Terms: Female Masculinities and Queer
Desires 191
6 The Desire to Desire: The Masculine Modern Woman
in Fiction 217
Conclusion 245
Index 254
Figures
I.1 The modern young woman (“Margita Alfvén—den
moderna unga kvinnan”) 2
1.1 Election workers in Stockholm 1924 (the second
national election in Sweden when women could vote) 40
2.1 Mannequins. Interior shot from Nordiska Kompaniet
(NK), Stockholm, 1928 70
2.2 Four models in overalls holding advertisement
balloons for Nordiska Kompaniet (NK) in Stockholm in
June 1929. The models were showing a new
“summer-suit” (sommarkostym) for women made by
Camp-Ahla 83
3.1 Winter fashion. A female model wearing a ski outfit for
Nordiska Kompaniet (NK), 1929 112
4.1 Female model from Nordiska Kompaniet (NK) wearing
a pilot-inspired automobile outfit (“Bilekipering”), 1928 147
4.2 Ruth Ericson on her Henderson motorcycle in the
competition Mälaren Runt (Around Lake Mälaren),
313 km, organized by the Swedish Motorcycle Club
(S.M.C.K.) in 1921 158
4.3 Three chauffeuses (“Tre chaufföser i Göteborgarnas
sommartävling. Överst t.v. Fru Jus; Därunder Fröken
Fagerström; t.h. Fröken Signe Kassman”) 162
5.1 An older feminist urges a group of young office girls to
fight for their rights. From the film Norrtullsligan (The
Norrtull Gang), 1923 201
Acknowledgments
This book was made possible through the generous financial support of
the Swedish Research Council (VR).1 For inspiration and an unwaver-
ing support of this project, I would like to extend first and foremost my
heartfelt thanks to Laura Doan, who welcomed me to the University of
Manchester as a visiting postdoc at the Centre for the Study of Sexuality
and Culture and generously introduced me to British academia as well as
the charms of Chorlton. Special thanks goes also to Jenny Björklund at
the Centre for Gender Research at Uppsala University, who supported
this project from the start and has provided many insightful thoughts and
helpful comments along the way. For their time, support and encourage-
ment, I am very grateful to Rebecca Ahlfeldt, Anita Hussénius, Karin
Lindelöf, Helena Tolvhed, Ann-Sofie Lönngren, Anneli Häyren, Klara
Goedecke, David Alderson and Marie-Louise Holm. I also extend my
gratitude to Max Novick and Jennifer Morrow at Routledge for their
support in steering this project through the publishing process and to
the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments that helped to
improve the book. Many thanks also go to the helpful staff at the fol-
lowing archives and libraries: Kungliga biblioteket (The Royal Library),
Svenska filminstitutet (Swedish Film Institute), Stockholms stadsarkiv
(Stockholm City Archives), Nordiska museet (The Nordic Museum in
Stockholm), Tekniska Museet (National Museum of Science and Tech-
nology) and The Sigtuna Foundation (Sigtunastiftelsens klipparkiv).
Finally, I would like to give a special thanks to my family, my friends
and my past as well as present colleagues for cheering me on during this
long-term academic journey that has now finally reached its destination.
Note
1 Vetenskapsrådet. Internationell postdok: diarienummer 437–2013–334.

Introduction
There she was, the modern girl, young and serious in a dark suit, with
close-cropped hair framing a solemn face. Portrayed in 1926 by a Swed-
ish film magazine, the young actress Margita Alfvén was presented as “a
child of her time”—slim, sporty, a girl who “knows what she wants.”1
One year previously, the same magazine had noted that there was indeed
something “garçonne-like” about Alfvén, suggesting that she might be
the “truly modern” young woman of Swedish film.2 By mentioning Vic-
tor Margueritte’s scandalous novel La Garçonne (1922), the reporter
evoked titillating associations; this was a novel associated with modern
decadence rather than modern confidence. However, as the readership
was reassured, all women had been “masculinized” since then, and the
garçonne style had turned into something quite “harmless.” Moreover,
this harmlessness was demonstrated, as the article concluded, in a recent
photo of Alfvén, appearing in her latest film in pajamas “without shock-
ing anyone or appearing as unwomanly.”3 By the mid-1920s, Swedish
entertainment periodicals were filled with such stories of garçonne-like
but harmless modern girls, pointing to a prospect that was both exciting
and disturbing: that modernity had brought forth a new kind of female
masculinity that was unlike anything seen before. These young women
were unlike the “mannish” emancipists of the previous century, unlike
the muscular amazons of ancient tales and unlike the military maids of
the recent world war.4 For many observers, the modern garçonne type
was above all fashionable.
Emphasizing her youth and playfulness, fashion historians have tended
to agree that the “modern girl” of the 1920s—a cultural icon across the
world during this period of time—was not seen as very threatening to
society.5 Her slim body, her fashionable garçonne style, her short hair (see
Figure I.1); everything signified a boyish rather than a mannish appear-
ance, and, thus, she was not, presumably, seen as infringing on or making
claims to adult male privilege. This makes a convincing argument, as it
highlights not only the playfulness of early interwar fashions but also the
importance of age in relation to power and tolerance of female gender
transgressions. At the same time, these studies also show that modern