The girl behind the man behind the gun
Women as carers in recruitment posters of the First World War
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12914622 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Angela Smith (0000-0003-4150-9439, University of Sunderland, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2008 |
| Volume | 1 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 223-241 |
| Publication date | 2008-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of War and Culture Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1752-6272 • E-ISSN: 1752-6280 |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1386/jwcs.1.3.223_1 |
| OpenAlex | W1995561681 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 4 |
The First World War saw a clash between the external, violent world of man-made destruction and the part women would be called upon to play in this. For the first time in Britain, women would be directly recruited by the state to play an active role in armed conflict. The dominant image of the female war worker of this conflict is that of the nurse, yet nursing was a role that was carried out by a very small number of women when compared with those working in munitions manufacture.This article explores the thread of care that runs through recruitment posters of the First World War. It looks at the way in which the image of women was used to recruit male service personnel early in the war, where women were used to represent the values of home and hearth that needed to be defended, whilst also representing an underlying heroism in their implied ability to safeguard these values in the absence of the gallant heroes. Whilst care is explicit in the role of the voluntary nurse in posters aimed directly at female recruitment, this article will also look at posters recruiting women to the apparently conflicting role of munitions manufacture, exploring how this thread of care is woven into images here, too.Social class will be seen as an important factor in the construction of the image of woman as carer in these posters, which, I will argue, carries echoes of late nineteenth-century social reforms that placed increasing emphasis on women as being responsible for the future well-being of the nation
Developmental psychology · Girl · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science · Gender Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · History · Law · Psychology · World Wars: History, Literature, and Impact
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |