Behaving Well: The Transition to Respectable Womanhood in Rural South Africa

• In Event: 067 - Section on Aging and the Life Course Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 05. Discourses of Womanhood across the Life Course

Abstract

Few studies on the transition to adulthood have analyzed African youth’s own definitions of the events that confer adult status and how adulthood is actually attained. This paper examines the experience of transitioning to womanhood in rural South Africa, drawing on interviews with 18 women aged 18-39. Three primary experiences characterized this transition: puberty and emerging body awareness, spending time with boys, and having a child. More important than the timing of these experiences, however, was whether women “behaved well” and maintained respectability as they transitioned to adulthood. Behavioral standards reinforcing ideal femininity were focused on dress, manner, and talk, and were particularly stringent for mothers. Our findings emphasize the value of emic models of adulthood for understanding how youth experience the transition and provide an important counter-narrative to the literature focused primarily on the risk African youth face during this period of change in the life course.

Authors

• Christie Sennott, Purdue University

• Sanyu A. Mojola, University of Colorado Boulder