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

by Elizabeth Bronwyn Boyd

Southern Beauty explains a why a feminine ideal rooted in the nineteenth century continues to enjoy currency well into the twenty-first. Elizabeth Bronwyn Boyd examines how the continuation of certain gender rituals in the American South has served to perpetuate racism, sexism, and classism.

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. But why?

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.

With its focus on performance, 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

210 pages, Hardcover

Published August 15, 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.

[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.

[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

[Aisha Manus · Rating 2 out of 5]

You ever go to a meeting and think "This could of been an email"? Well this book should have been an article. There was SO MUCH FILLER! I should have known it was going to be like that when the introduction was a astounding 34 pages of the 140 book... While she makes some great points they are overshadowed by all the extra nonsense.

When it came to the chapter on rushing Ole Miss I was miffed all the pictured supplied was from other universities. It was kinda weird. Also great points about white culture, and it is still relevant as rush in the south still continues to be majority lily white and a show of money. But again the points are muddled in all the crap.

The beauty pageant section was all over the place. Plus it came from an etic viewpoint, so there were times I could tell that the author just didn't "get it". Maybe because I compete and have the emic perspective, I could see that certain things went over the head for her. The chapter was just a miss.

The chapter on the nostalgic performances of Natchez was the best one as it has lost of focus on a specific theme and didn't have as much filler. But at that point it wasn't enough to save the book from the previous 100 pages of rambling.

Overall there are good things in this book that worthy of deeper diving and i could see this being a good resource as a starting for for certain subjects she brooches but I would not recommend this.

I should note I do like the cover because the modern dress with the exposed zipper attempting to represent an antebellum southern belle is a great representation of the theme itself. of course i don't think the cover artist was thinking this, they probably just saw a pretty picture.

(for reference I have a masters in US history (my focus was the south) and an associates in anthropology so I am not an average reader)

[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.

[Melissa Camp · Rating 1 out of 5]

Was it her position that readers will be surprised to learn that contemporary white women from the American South are southern? I don’t know why someone would spill ink asserting the obvious. Just read a diary from Dixie if you want to learn the heart of confederate women. And don’t throw other women under the bus. And have the grace to say something we don’t already know -and do so with a touch of modesty and compassion. This is your country, too.

[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.

[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.