scholarly journals SEX, GENDER, AND ROMANTIC INTIMACY IN SERVICEMEN'S LETTERS DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 732-753
Author(s):  
ALISON TWELLS
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Home Front ◽  
World War ◽  
Cultural Scripts ◽  
Cultural Ideal ◽  
Sexually Explicit ◽  
Romantic Intimacy ◽  
Military Cultures ◽  
Second World

AbstractThis article explores sex and romance as under-examined aspects of wartime masculinities through a focus on letters from servicemen recipients of woollen ‘comforts’ to girls and women who knitted for them during the Second World War. It examines the tension between the cultural ideal of ‘temperate heroism’ that formed the hegemonic masculinity during the Second World War and evidence of predatory male sexuality and sexual violence, both in combat and on the home front. Servicemen's letters to anonymous knitters reveal many aspects of their emotional lives, including the widespread deployment of romance as a mechanism for maintaining morale. They also reveal that some men were able to manipulate their image as ‘heroes’ and make use of the comforts fund as a vehicle for engaging in sexually explicit correspondence and transgressive and deviant behaviours. A foregrounding of romance and sexuality suggests that we need to look again at arguments relating to the contiguity between military cultures and middle- and working-class civilian codes of respectable masculinity and male heterosexual expression. The article further engages with critiques in the history of masculinity of the neglect of working-class masculinities and the tendency to focus on cultural scripts about masculinity rather than what men actually did or felt.

Gendered Identities in British Regions in Wartime: Women in Reserved Occupations in Glasgow and Clydeside in the Second World War

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-62
Author(s):  
Alison Chand
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Working Women ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Home Front ◽  
World War ◽  
Gendered Identities ◽  
Class Background ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Second World

This article focuses on women working in reserved occupations in Glasgow and Clydeside during the Second World War, including their feelings of contribution to the war effort, self-fulfilment in work and, in some cases, dislike of work and lack of attachment to the war effort. The article also examines the extent to which wartime work represented continuity in the lives of working women in the region, and discusses the relationships of such women with men in their local communities, where social and cultural discourse was inextricably intertwined with the realities and discourses of day-to-day existence. One argument presented is that women's wartime work in Clydeside was representative of renegotiated relationships with the men in their communities rather than destabilising masculinity. The argument is put forward that, as well as the changes represented by war, the day-to-day life of women's immediate local vicinities and the uniquely industrial and working class background of Clydeside were enduring influences on their subjectivities and everyday behaviour. The article therefore adds to the historiography relating to life on the home front in the Second World War by exploring the subjectivities of reserved women in the context of the communities where they lived and worked.

The Motif of Sacrifice in the Literature and Culture of the Second World War

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Rawlinson
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
First World War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Home Front ◽  
World War ◽  
War Poetry ◽  
Anglophone Literature ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Second World ◽  
First World

This chapter explores how Anglophone literature and culture envisioned and questioned an economy of sacrificial exchange, particularly its symbolic aspect, as driving the compulsions entangled in the Second World War. After considering how Elizabeth Bowen’s short stories cast light on the Home Front rhetorics of sacrifice and reconstruction, it looks at how poets Robert Graves, Keith Douglas, and Alun Lewis reflect on First World War poetry of sacrifice. With reference to René Girard’s and Carl von Clausewitz’s writings on war, I take up Elaine Cobley’s assertion about the differing valencies of the First and Second World Wars, arguing that the contrast is better seen in terms of sacrificial economy. I develop that argument with reference to examples from Second World War literature depicting sacrificial exchange (while often harking back to the First World War), including Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honour Trilogy (1952–61), and William Wharton’s memoir Shrapnel (2012).

Women’s Antifascist Resistance on German-Occupied Territory Through the Lens of Soviet Leaflets, 1941–1945

2021 ◽  
pp. 002200942098804
Author(s):  
Regina Kazyulina
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Home Front ◽  
The Self ◽  
World War ◽  
Occupied Territory ◽  
Women And Children ◽  
Second World ◽  
Unrealistic Expectations

During the Second World War, approximately 28,500 Soviet women fought in the ranks of the partisans on Soviet territory temporarily occupied by the Wehrmacht. Although Soviet propaganda destined for the home front often spoke about their contributions, they eschewed direct appeals for others to follow in their footsteps. In contrast, partisan leaflets distributed across occupied territory overtly called on local women to join the partisan movement and fight alongside men. This essay explores how Soviet propagandists attempted to engage with local women on occupied territory through partisan leaflets and the kinds of expectations they sought to convey. Partisan leaflets not only exploited the image of the self-sacrificing partizanka to encourage women to sacrifice themselves but also vividly and graphically detailed crimes committed against women and children in order to inspire hatred. Such depictions were meant to steal the resolve of local civilians, while simultaneously discouraging behavior that was thought to aid the enemy. The representations conveyed in partisan leaflets encouraged a duality that saw women portrayed either as Soviet-style amazons or victims of sexual violence and rape. While promoting partisan recruitment, such representations encouraged unrealistic expectations and foreshadowed the violence that awaited women who failed to live up to them.

scholarly journals Punkty, czyli złuda modernizacji

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 265-271
Author(s):  
Marcin Kula
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Class Origin ◽  
Post War ◽  
The University ◽  
Second World

The author’s remarks on Agata Zysiak’s book Punkty za pochodzenie. Powojenna modernizacja i uniwersytet w robotniczym mieście [Points for Class Origin: Post-War Modernization and the University in a Working-Class City] (2016) primarily concern the question of social advance through education and Zysiak’s outline of this process in Poland after the Second World War. As a participant of that process — first as a student, and later as a teacher — the author suggests that it should be viewed from the perspective of historical sociology.

Life stories: biography and creativity

2020 ◽  
pp. 21-44
Author(s):  
Paul Thompson ◽  
Ken Plummer ◽  
Neli Demireva
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
World War ◽  
War Experiences ◽  
And Gender ◽  
University Expansion ◽  
Second World

This chapter traces the engine of the pioneers' success and discusses their earlier lives, hinting or reflecting on how these experiences may have shaped their research. It begins by analyzing how the pioneers' were influenced by the communities where they grew up. Looking at the pioneers' families as a whole, even though this generation for which unprecedented university expansion brought rare opportunities for upward mobility, the chapter examines the pioneers' working-class families and old Oxbridge intellectual aristocracy. It notes that some of the key factors which brought them opportunities were due to national social changes and international events. The chapter also looks at how the older generation generally benefitted from Second World War experiences that took them out of their social-class cocoon. The chapter then discusses the pioneers who chose to explore other cultures rather than to research their own communities. It emphasizes social class injustice, racism, and gender injustice.

Conclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 154-168
Author(s):  
Jeff Eden
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Home Front ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
World War ◽  
World War One ◽  
Religious Policy ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Devotional Life ◽  
Second World

This concluding chapter reviews the two stories told in the book about Soviet Muslims in the Second World War: one about the devotional life of Muslim citizens, including soldiers, their families on the home front, and local religious leaders; the other about state dynamics. Regarding the effectiveness of Soviet religious propaganda during the Second World War, it offers summary thoughts connecting the resurgence of devotional life in wartime, the widespread perception that religiosity was now permitted by the state, and the state’s ambiguous, ineffectual approach to shaping religious policy. The chapter then places the book in the context of other studies of Islam in the Soviet Union.

III Woolton at the Ministry of Food

2020 ◽  
pp. 39-70
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Home Front ◽  
Food Control ◽  
World War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Second World ◽  
First World

The Ministry of Food was essentially created during the War, and survived until it was reabsorbed into the Ministry of Agriculture in 1958. It has been the subject of extensive popular and scholarly interest as part of research into the management of the Second World War on the Home Front. Lessons about food control had been learned from the experiences of the First World War, which were consciously applied to this war. This was in part because so many of the men had been involved in that conflict in some way, including Woolton himself. They had personal memories of what had worked well then, but were also very aware of the mistakes that had been made, which they did not wanted repeated. Woolton certainly was, as his ...

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