Southern Beauty: Race, Ritual, and Memory in the Modern South

by Elizabeth Bronwyn Boyd, Elisabeth Ashby (Reader)

In a trio of popular gender rituals--sorority rush, beauty pageants, and the Confederate Pageant of the Natchez (Mississippi) Pilgrimage--young white southern women have readily ditched contemporary modes of dress and comportment for performances of purity, gentility, and deference. Clearly, the ability to "do" white southern womanhood, convincingly and on cue, has remained a valued performance. Based on ethnographic research and more than sixty taped interviews, Southern Beauty goes behind the scenes of the three rituals to explore the motivations and rewards associated with participation. The picture that Boyd paints is not it is one of southern beauties securing status and sustaining segregation by making nostalgic gestures to the southern past. Boyd also maintains that the audiences for these rituals and pageants have been complicit, unwilling to acknowledge the beauties' racial work or their investment in it. Southern Beauty moves beyond representations to show how femininity in motion--stylized and predictable but ephemeral--has succeeded as an enduring emblem, where other symbols faltered, by failing to draw scrutiny. Continuing to make the moves of region and race even as many Confederate symbols have been retired, the southern beauty has persisted, maintaining power and privilege through consistent performance.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Sociology, Feminism, Race, Audiobook, Southern

Audio CD

Published September 27, 2022

Reviews

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am in awe of the impressive research of this book, including painstaking archival research, interviews, oral histories, and site visits. I wish that I had had this when writing both Being Ugly and my essay in The Tacky South, as Boyd’s analysis of the deception required and perpetuated by white southern beauty speaks to and extends quite a bit of what I’ve written.

Plus, it’s one of the best first lines of any book: “I think it was the screaming.”

[M.J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Try this for your next bookclub read and discussion:

Excellent research on a very dark topic permeating U.S. history through today, approached with sensitivity and awareness by the author. The evidence and examples of racist rituals, performances, and incidents originating in the South (and I never grew up or lived there) is simultaneously shockingly disgusting and yet also not surprising - really, its just hurtful, and I hope that post-George Floyd murder protests, people are held to account for such acts. This book really lays out the fact that there are serious issues continuing to plague the soul of our country related to racism that are deeply wrong and troubling, that will literally continue to take generations to overcome, if at all. One could start by reading this book or Caste by Isabel Wilkerson to at least educate themselves on what I mean, because as she says, U.S. citizens do not only inherit the benefits of our country, but also the burdens too.

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Boyd argues persuasively that the imagery of Southern beauty that manifests in sororities, beauty pageants and historic commemoration (she focuses on Natchez, which at one marketed itself heavily as an Old South remnant turned tourist destination) subtly reinforces racial as well as gender lines. It sets a standard of beauty and grace that's both white and upper-class enough to keep out women of color; it justified lynchings in the name of protecting white women; with hoop skirts and manners it implies the South today is continuous with the antebellum era.
I'd have liked a discussion of Southern images in film and TV but that's me — I don't think the book suffers for lacking it.

[Evva Starr · Rating 3 out of 5]

A former student (who I adore) recommended this one to me. It’s a dissertation on how the ideal of southern beauty over our nation’s history has perpetuated racist, classist, sexist ideologies, particularly through the institutions of sorority rush, beauty pageants and civic celebrations of antebellum culture. I’m not sure I learned much, and it’s a little wonky, but I don’t think we can be reminded enough of how white supremacy culture shows up in our county.

[mia russo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book, well researched (though I don’t know if I buy everything she argues). Would recommend for anyone from the South - sheds a different light on a lot of things we take for normal which is very thought provoking. Lost a star for the section of the book about pageants which I think is a stretch and not super interesting

[Kate T · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up

I was inspired to read this book by Bamarushtok! There were some really interesting facts here about sororities, pageants, and a continued confederate event. Learning about the history of sororities was really interesting but I don’t think the book grabbed me as much as I was expecting.

[Regan Stauffer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted more from this book.. I don’t know what exactly it just didn’t feel cohesively written and spent way too long up front talking about what the author was trying to do instead of just jumping into the meat of the book

[Chérie A. · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book explores the importance placed on beauty in the south and how the limited view of what was/is considered attractive has created an exclusive culture.

[devna · Rating 5 out of 5]

essential reading for all — but especially young southern women.