Wilcox, VandaOgle, OgleWalsh, Courtney2024-11-142024-11-142011Walsh, Courtney. "The British Gendered Experience of the First World War". BA Thesis, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy. 2011.https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14490/751Thesis (B.A. in History, Minor in Humanistic Studies)--John Cabot University, Spring 2011.The objective of this thesis was to explore the significant role gender played in shaping the British experience of the First World War (1914-1918). To explore the role of gender, a wide range of scholarship was utilized, including the leading theories on both gender and the war system. The author also examined primary sources such as wartime m *? m propaganda pieces, recruitment campaigns and British domestic legislation, which revealed how deeply imbued gender roles had become in the Justification of the war. This thesis additionally established that gender shaped the general war experience for both men and women in very different and often contradictory ways. Furthermore, as gender is reciprocal, this work demonstrated how the effects of the masculine experience (»ei had direct effects on the feminine, and vice versa. The temporary role reversal that occurred during the war in which women grew emboldened and men seemingly more effeminate was examined, as was the crisis of masculinity that resulted. The principle conclusion of this work was that as gender is socially constructed, it is a fluid concept and thus is able to be re-conceptualized. Furthermore, while the First World War served to solidify gender roles, it also paradoxically created an environment for these roles to be challenged. Men were able to redefine masculinity to fit wartime needs due to the gendered solidarity that existed as a result of their shared war experience. The same was not true for women, however, and the traditional female roles remained intact due to both the lack of this gendered solidarity and the backlash women suffered as a result of the wartime male anxiety. What the British gendered experience of the First World War served to reveal was how gender could be both challenged and reasserted as well as gender’s role in both unifying and dividing society.v, 83 pagesenAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/War and societyWorld War, 1914-1918Thesis