A01=Susan R. Grayzel
Author_Susan R. Grayzel
Category=JBSF1
Category=NHD
Category=NHTB
Category=NHWR5
civic participation
civilians
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
European history
femininity
gender roles
home front
identity
legislative debates
masculinity
morality
mothering
national service
newspapers
popular fiction
sexuality
soldiering
war front
war memorials
women's history
World War I
Product details
- ISBN 9780807848104
- Weight: 505g
- Dimensions: 147 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 28 Jun 1999
- Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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There are few moments in history when the division between the sexes seems as ""natural"" as during wartime: men go off to the ""war front"", while women stay behind on the ""home front"". But the very notion of the home front was an invention of the First World War, when, for the first time, ""home"" and ""domestic"" became adjectives that modified the military term ""front"". Such an innovation acknowledged the significant and presumably new contributions of civilians, especially women, to the war effort. Yet, as the author of this study argues, traditional notions of masculinity and femininity survived, primarily through the maintenance of soldiering and mothering as the core of gender and national identities. Drawing on sources that range from popular fiction and war memorials to newspapers and legislative debates, Susan Grayzel analyzes the effects of World War I on ideas about civic participation, national service, morality, sexuality, and identity in wartime Britain and France. Despite the appearance of enormous challenges to gender roles due to the upheavals of war, the forces of stability prevailed, she states, demonstrating the western European gender system's remarkable resilience.
