Girlhood Modified in             "Susan of St. Brides" in Girl magazine (1954-61)
Shu-fen Tsai
Abstract
This paper is to study the earliest movement of reforming children's comics in Britain in the 1950s and the pioneering gender-role reconstruction done in Ruth Adam's comic strip series, "Susan at St. Brides". Intending to correct the gender stereotypes in the comic strips of aggressive males and victimised heroines, Ruth Adam originated a modern type of girl heroine, who is witty, brave, career-wise, a little rebellious, but meanwhile a practical model for all juveniles. Ruth Adam was so far the first women writer who had proved it possible to market feminism to the non-feminist reading public, especially, children and growing up girls.
Keywords: children's comics, juvenile literature, femininity, girlhood