scholarly journals ‘The Menace of Effeminacy’: Medical and Popular Discussions of Masculinity in Interwar New Zealand, c.1918-1939

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Ailish Wallace-Buckland
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Sexual Offenders ◽  
The State ◽  
Male Sexuality ◽  
Great War ◽  
Male Body ◽  
World War One ◽  
Mental Defectives ◽  
The Great War

<p>In January 1932, the Sydney-based lifestyle magazine Health and Physical Culture published an article titled ‘The Menace of Effeminacy’. This article, written by Carl Hertzig, and read by magazine-subscribers across the Tasman, documented anxieties around the state of men and masculinity following the upheaval of the Great War. Touching on topics such as gender, psychology, eugenics, and sexuality this article and its concerns represent those that this thesis explores in order to understand what the ‘fear of effeminacy’ actually meant for New Zealanders during the interwar years (c.1918-1939). This thesis documents and analyses contemporary discussions of male sexuality and masculinity through a series of sources in order to establish the ways in which these concepts were understood in interwar New Zealand. Firstly, it examines some of the key pieces of legislation and reports that demonstrated official approaches, and ways of thinking, towards mental defectives, sexual offenders, and those with war neuroses. It then explores medical journals, and the dissertations of medical students; and finally, it analyses parts of popular print culture in Aotearoa/New Zealand, such as magazines and newspapers, in order to investigate and piece together the landscape in which said anxieties around effeminacy, masculinity, mental stability, and other deviations from the societally prescribed norm met. This thesis approaches these primary sources in such a way that acknowledges the evolutionary framework of understanding that was pervasive in medical circles during this era.  By thus examining the connections between constructions of the male body, homosexuality and effeminacy, late nineteenth to early twentieth century ideas around eugenics, and psychology and psychiatry, this work further uncovers the state of masculinity and male sexuality in New Zealand during the interwar period. This thesis argues that the ‘threat’ to masculinity perceived in a variety of venues was a mixture of anxieties around physical and mental wounds inflicted by the Great War; population concerns exacerbated by the exposure of the health-standards of troops, and worries of how to recover and reconstruct a virile society following four years of strife; concerns at the apparent loosening of sexual mores, and the changing manifestations of both masculinity and femininity; and ever increasing interest in the psychology of self, sexuality, and society. It adds to existing work on post-World War One masculinity by centring New Zealand discussions and understandings in a way that contributes to the broader literature on New Zealand twentieth-century masculinity, psychology and psychiatry, eugenics, and male sexuality.</p>

scholarly journals ‘The Menace of Effeminacy’: Medical and Popular Discussions of Masculinity in Interwar New Zealand, c.1918-1939

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Ailish Wallace-Buckland
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Sexual Offenders ◽  
The State ◽  
Male Sexuality ◽  
Great War ◽  
Male Body ◽  
World War One ◽  
Mental Defectives ◽  
The Great War

<p>In January 1932, the Sydney-based lifestyle magazine Health and Physical Culture published an article titled ‘The Menace of Effeminacy’. This article, written by Carl Hertzig, and read by magazine-subscribers across the Tasman, documented anxieties around the state of men and masculinity following the upheaval of the Great War. Touching on topics such as gender, psychology, eugenics, and sexuality this article and its concerns represent those that this thesis explores in order to understand what the ‘fear of effeminacy’ actually meant for New Zealanders during the interwar years (c.1918-1939). This thesis documents and analyses contemporary discussions of male sexuality and masculinity through a series of sources in order to establish the ways in which these concepts were understood in interwar New Zealand. Firstly, it examines some of the key pieces of legislation and reports that demonstrated official approaches, and ways of thinking, towards mental defectives, sexual offenders, and those with war neuroses. It then explores medical journals, and the dissertations of medical students; and finally, it analyses parts of popular print culture in Aotearoa/New Zealand, such as magazines and newspapers, in order to investigate and piece together the landscape in which said anxieties around effeminacy, masculinity, mental stability, and other deviations from the societally prescribed norm met. This thesis approaches these primary sources in such a way that acknowledges the evolutionary framework of understanding that was pervasive in medical circles during this era.  By thus examining the connections between constructions of the male body, homosexuality and effeminacy, late nineteenth to early twentieth century ideas around eugenics, and psychology and psychiatry, this work further uncovers the state of masculinity and male sexuality in New Zealand during the interwar period. This thesis argues that the ‘threat’ to masculinity perceived in a variety of venues was a mixture of anxieties around physical and mental wounds inflicted by the Great War; population concerns exacerbated by the exposure of the health-standards of troops, and worries of how to recover and reconstruct a virile society following four years of strife; concerns at the apparent loosening of sexual mores, and the changing manifestations of both masculinity and femininity; and ever increasing interest in the psychology of self, sexuality, and society. It adds to existing work on post-World War One masculinity by centring New Zealand discussions and understandings in a way that contributes to the broader literature on New Zealand twentieth-century masculinity, psychology and psychiatry, eugenics, and male sexuality.</p>

scholarly journals The Reality of Return: Exploring the Experiences of World War One Soldiers after Their Return to New Zealand

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Coralie Clarkson
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Good Health ◽  
Great War ◽  
World War ◽  
World War One ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Great War ◽  
Idealistic View

<p>The focus of this thesis is the lives of New Zealand's returned Great War soldiers. This thesis explores the experiences of men who did not successfully repatriate as a counterpoint to the experiences of those who did, and argues that men's return to New Zealand and their post war lives were shaped by many factors including access to employment and good health. Many returned soldiers were able to resume their lives on return and led relatively happy and successful lives. For these men, their success seems to have come from the ability to find or resume employment, good health, family support, and financial support. For those who did not, one or more of these factors was often missing, and this could lead to short or long term struggle. The 1920s form the backdrop of this thesis, and were a time of uncertainty and anxiety for returned men and their families. The disillusionment of the 1920s was exacerbated by men's nostalgia for New Zealand which they built up during the war. Tens of thousands of men returned to New Zealand from war with dreams and hopes for the future. The horrors of war had given men an idealistic view of peaceful New Zealand, and dreams of home comforts and loved ones had sustained these men through their long absence. For those who returned to find life difficult, the idealistic view of New Zealand as a land of simplicity and happiness would have been hard to maintain. Chapter 1 demonstrates the idealisation of New Zealand and 'home' built up by soldiers and their families during the war. Chapters 2, 3 and 4 use the lenses of employment, illness – specifically tuberculosis – and alcoholism to argue that for many men and their families, the 1920s were an extension of the anxieties and separation of the Great War years. Sadly, for some, their lives were forever marred by the spectre of war and what their absence from home cost them.</p>

scholarly journals The Sorry Steel: Trophy Guns in New Zealand’s World War One Commemoration

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Cooke
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Great War ◽  
World War ◽  
World War One ◽  
War Memorials ◽  
The Great War

In relation to WWI war memorials, we traditionally we have had a picture of earnest committees raising funds to build an obelisk, and dedicating it in a ceremony filled with poignancy and regret, sorrow and pride. And while that is essentially correct, the picture Jock Philips and Chris McLean painted (in their 1990 book) was skewed in one salient aspect – virtually all New Zealand communities also commemorated their fallen with a trophy gun. Hundreds of captured artillery pieces, mortars and machine guns were brought back from the front and distributed – to every city, town, borough, suburb and almost every school. This paper explores a slightly different view our commemorating the sacrifices of the Great War, one that added an element of ‘cold steel’ to the marble statuary. So what did we see in these trophy guns? Were they a triumphal statement or a reminder of loss? And what happened to them and the mode of commemoration they signified?

scholarly journals The Reality of Return: Exploring the Experiences of World War One Soldiers after Their Return to New Zealand

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Coralie Clarkson
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Good Health ◽  
Great War ◽  
World War ◽  
World War One ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Great War ◽  
Idealistic View

<p>The focus of this thesis is the lives of New Zealand's returned Great War soldiers. This thesis explores the experiences of men who did not successfully repatriate as a counterpoint to the experiences of those who did, and argues that men's return to New Zealand and their post war lives were shaped by many factors including access to employment and good health. Many returned soldiers were able to resume their lives on return and led relatively happy and successful lives. For these men, their success seems to have come from the ability to find or resume employment, good health, family support, and financial support. For those who did not, one or more of these factors was often missing, and this could lead to short or long term struggle. The 1920s form the backdrop of this thesis, and were a time of uncertainty and anxiety for returned men and their families. The disillusionment of the 1920s was exacerbated by men's nostalgia for New Zealand which they built up during the war. Tens of thousands of men returned to New Zealand from war with dreams and hopes for the future. The horrors of war had given men an idealistic view of peaceful New Zealand, and dreams of home comforts and loved ones had sustained these men through their long absence. For those who returned to find life difficult, the idealistic view of New Zealand as a land of simplicity and happiness would have been hard to maintain. Chapter 1 demonstrates the idealisation of New Zealand and 'home' built up by soldiers and their families during the war. Chapters 2, 3 and 4 use the lenses of employment, illness – specifically tuberculosis – and alcoholism to argue that for many men and their families, the 1920s were an extension of the anxieties and separation of the Great War years. Sadly, for some, their lives were forever marred by the spectre of war and what their absence from home cost them.</p>

The Nature and Legacy of British Imperial Internment

2020 ◽  
pp. 303-314
Author(s):  
Stefan Manz ◽  
Panikos Panayi
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
British Empire ◽  
First Century ◽  
Great War ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The Great War ◽  
The Way

This chapter begins by highlighting the main findings of the book, including the globalization of internment by the Empire during the Great War and the consequences for individuals and their families, but also the fact that Britain treated those it had incarcerated in a humane way. The chapter examines the return to Germany, its consequences for individuals, and the way in which the German authorities dealt with the former residents of the British Empire. These people, who may not have seen their homeland for decades, made efforts to preserve the memory of their experiences, along with former civilian and military prisoners who came from other states at war with Germany. While the memory of internment may have survived into the interwar years, it disappeared in the second half of the twentieth century, but came back to life in the early twenty-first century, inspired by the centenary of the Great War.

End of the War and Aftermath

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Bettez
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Great War ◽  
Social Differences ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Spanish Flu ◽  
The University ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Great War ◽  
Gold Star

This chapter covers the Spanish flu epidemic’s effects on the state; the Kentucky Council of Defense’s conference on state problems in March 1919; efforts to commemorate war participants in various ways (such as the University of Kentucky’s Memorial Hall and local memorials); and the experience of one Kentucky Gold Star Mother, Nola Miller Kinne Fogg, on her US government–sponsored pilgrimage to her son’s grave in France in the early 1930s. The chapter also draws some conclusions about Kentucky and the Great War, including how the state coalesced in support of the war despite political, economic, and social differences.

The Institution of Conscription

1996 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Levi
Keyword(s):  
Turning Points ◽  
The State ◽  
Great War ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The Great War

Johnnie get your gun, get your gun, get your gun,Take it on the run, on the run, on the run,Hear them calling you and me,Ev'ry son of liberty.Hurry right away, no delay, go today,Make your daddy glad to have had such a lad,Tell your sweetheart not to pine,To be proud her boy's in line.George P. Cohan, “Over There” The chronicle of mass conscription in modern democracies is the story of the changing relationship between the state and its citizens, and the Great War is one of the major turning points, especially in the Anglo-Saxon democracies.The institution of conscription significantly extends the obligations of male citizens and the reach of the state.

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