Post Author: Mary Challman
The gendered Southern ideal was not limited to Southern womanhood; during the 1970s, the country also saw a growth in popularity of the ideal “Southern man” that stemmed from the spread of Southernization throughout the decade. While Southern womanhood was decidedly more demure, the concept of “redneck chic” amongst men in the 1970s. The Southern man became idealized as a hard-working, honest (white) man who maintained traditional gender roles and distrusted government interference (Schulman, 115-117). Pictured above, the plaid flannel shirts and cowboy hats worn by the fraternity brothers of Kappa Epsilon Gamma represent this ideal perfectly. The plaid shirt and cowboy hat, the garb of a working man, saw great popularity amongst men throughout the nation, and even on the Madison College/JMU campus. These visual demonstrations of the new, commercialized “redneck culture” became a badge of honor of sorts for many men on campus. Whether or not one was redneck by birth, one could adopt the lifestyle of a redneck as a “fashion statement, a gesture of resistance against high taxes, liberals, racial inegration, women’s liberation, and hippies” (Schulman, 117). These ideals were not only reflected in the fashion that existed amongst the men on campus, but also through the masculine ideals that were expressed in the popular music of the time. Bluegrass and country music saw extreme popularity among the students of Madison College/JMU. Seen below, a young redneck picks at a banjo, an instrument that is almost exclusively associate with bluegrass and country music. The Southern man that was typified in country music during the 1970s defined the ideal male role of the time – a strong, working man who supported traditional gender roles and the individualism that was associated with the American South (Lipsitz, 88). The glimpses of redneck culture among the males of Madison College/JMU during the 1970s show how Southernization affected both female and male gender roles.
Works Cited
James Madison University. The Bluestone. 1975. http://archive.org/details/bluestone197567jame
James Madison University. The Bluestone. 1978. http://archive.org/details/bluestone197870jame
Lipsitz, George. “Looking for a Style: Male Images in Country Music of the 1970s.” In Popular Culture in America, edited by Paul Buhle, 84-90. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987.
Schulman, Bruce J. The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and Politics. Cambridge, MA, Da Capo Press: 2001.