Women and War: A Comprehensive Overview

Women and War

Introduction

Due to time and course constraints, the focus has primarily been on political and geopolitical history (governments, wars, imperialism, resistance, political changes). Specific women have been discussed, and religious, cultural, and intellectual history touched upon (Enlightenment, nationalism, communism, liberal constitutional democracy). While this provides a general understanding, the "Women and War" unit aims to delve into other fields of historical inquiry, albeit in a limited way, including:

• Women’s History
• Gender History (distinct from women's history, focusing on gender roles, relations, and perceptions)
• Social History (focusing on regular people)
• Military History (discussed mainly as secondary to political changes)

Lysistrata

• Lysistrata (411 BCE): A Greek play by Aristophanes.
• Written and performed during the Peloponnesian Wars (Greek city-states warring against each other).
• A comedy that subtly critiques the absurdities of war.
• Lysistrata: An intellectual and unconventional woman who convinces women from various city-states to withhold sex from their men until they stop fighting.
• Modern interpretations may view this as feminist or pacifist, but these claims may be overstated.
  • Women are still portrayed as weaker and less intelligent.
  • The concern was more about Greek unity than universal pacifism.

Female Influence

• Regardless of the original intent, the play represents the idea that women, even under patriarchy, can influence men on various topics, including war, using available tools.
• Martial virtue is often (but not always) tied to masculinity and the promise of earthly or celestial rewards, including love, marriage, and sexual relations with women.
• This is particularly effective on young men, who have historically comprised the bulk of armed forces.

Spartans

• Exhortation: "Come back with your shield or on it!"
• Returning without a shield or alive from defeat was dishonorable and unmasculine.

Women and War: A Dichotomy

• Legacy of two ideas:
  • Have women turned men away from war?
  • Have women encouraged men to go to war?
• Both can be true, but rarely explicit or uncomplicated.
• Women are associated with:
  • Home
  • Civilized behavior
  • Non-violence
• These beliefs influence soldiers' decisions to enlist and fight.

US Civil War: Women’s Influence

• Antebellum South: Women and their honor were protected by men in exchange for submission and fulfilling the ideal of "inner spaces."
• 1861: Protecting this honor meant encouraging men to fight the "rapacious Yankee invader."
• Later in the war: Wives on both sides were more concerned with issues at home.
• Women asked their husbands to return home to help with farms or family industries.
• In the South, women ran farms/plantations and dealt with threats from bandits, escaped slaves, and the Home Guard.

Defending Southern Womanhood

• 1861: Meant going to fight.
• Later: Meant deserting to attend to families.
• The wishes of these women were frequently fulfilled.

Confederate Leadership

• 1863: A Savannah newspaper urged Southern women to preserve the Confederate spirit.
• Women should relinquish their hold on their men.
• Fill every possible post at home and send the last man to the field.
• Confederate President Jefferson Davis called on Southern women to continue supporting the war effort, to buoy up the hearts of the people.

US Civil War: Women's Contributions

• Frank Moore (1867): "The story of the war will never be fully or fairly written if the achievements of women in it are untold."
• Women were significantly impacted by the war.
• Fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons were away fighting.
• Women were left to fend for themselves, keep families going, or maintain businesses.
• Women raised awareness and support for the troops, working with expanding networks.
• Women extended their nurturing roles to soldiers in the field and in hospitals.
• War provided opportunities for women to go outside their sphere.
• These advancements were rarely permanent; normal gender roles were usually restored after the war.

Gender Shaming: "The White Feather"

• Start of World War I: Admiral Charles Fitzgerald wanted to increase enlistments.
• August 1914: Recruited women in Folkestone to hand out white feathers (a sign of cowardice) to men not in uniform.
• Believed this would shame men into enlisting.
• Founded the White Feather Brigade or the Order of the White Feather.

Battlefield Nurses

• Women (mostly volunteers) have provided medical care and comfort to injured soldiers for centuries.
• This service was dangerous due to attacks, bombings, and disease transmission.
• The mental trauma of comforting dying men was significant.
• This occurred in various locations:
  • Battlefields of Europe (Napoleonic Wars)
  • US Civil War
  • Homes turned into hospitals (World Wars 1 and 2)
  • Shipboard hospitals
  • "Safe zone" hospitals (Hawaii, Australia)

Florence Nightingale

• Often called the creator of modern nursing.
• Applied hygiene and statistics as a battlefield nurse for the British Army in Constantinople during the Crimean War (1853-1856).

Clara Barton

• 1864: Gen. Benjamin Butler made her head nurse of the Army of the James, despite no formal medical training.
• She created the American Red Cross.
• While on the front lines, she expressed her love for the drum music and her ability to face danger.

Louisa May Alcott

• Before publishing Little Women in 1867, Alcott was an abolitionist, proto-feminist, supporter of temperance and women’s suffrage.
• Served as a field army hospital nurse in the Civil War.
• Wrote Hospital Sketches.

Courage Under Fire: Air Raids in WW1

• WW1 saw the first wide-scale targeting of civilians in cities by airborne bombs.
• The goal was to cause panic, halt industry, and potentially win the war.
• Germany attacked France and Great Britain.
• In Great Britain:
  • 52 raids
  • 2,772 bombs dropped
  • 73.5 long tons (74.7 t) weight
  • 62 aircraft lost
  • 857 people killed
  • 2,058 injured
  • £1,434,526 of damage
• The German bombing has been called the first Blitz.
• Bombs were also dropped by Zeppelins (hydrogen airships).

Civilian Responses to Air Raids

• Historian Susan Grayzel: "Bombing has helped create a situation where the whole nation demands to help."
• Civilians are involved in war because they are under fire.
• Civilians have become like soldiers because they know how to face death and destruction without panic.
• Comparing Germany to "Jack the Ripper" (common in British propaganda) underscored the idea of German militarism as a deviant masculinity.
• Civilians face down a savage, barbarous enemy with contempt for innocent life.
• Traits exhibited by those fighting the enemy (honor, pride, fear of defeat) were seen in women and children as well as non-combatant men.

Industry

• Rosie the Riveter: The American figure of the woman stepping into male industrial roles during WW2 labor shortages.

Women in the Workforce during WW2

• Women were needed in defense industries, civilian service, and the armed forces.
• Publicity campaigns encouraged women who had never worked outside the home to join the workforce.
• Posters and films glorified working women, suggesting that femininity need not be sacrificed.
• Women were portrayed as attractive, confident, and resolved to win the war.

Women’s Army Corps (WACs)

• The women's branch of the United States Army.
• Created as an auxiliary unit (Women's Army Auxiliary Corps) on May 15, 1942.
• Converted to active duty as the WAC on July 1, 1943.
• Active: May 15, 1942 – October 20, 1978
• Branch: United States Army
• Engagements: World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War
• Home station: Fort McClellan, Alabama
• Jobs included: clerk, typist, baker, switchboard operator, mechanic, and weapons care specialist.

Reactions to Women in the Military

• The military's acceptance of women serving reflected the dire situation.
• Some commanders initially opposed women serving.
• General Dwight D. Eisenhower initially "violently against" women serving but later acknowledged his error.
• Admiral Chester Nimitz was skeptical about the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) but became a convert after seeing it work.

Lasting Results?

• Wartime exigencies created opportunities for women (and racial minorities) to prove their abilities in various roles.
• Rarely did this lead to significant change after the men returned.
• Some historians link woman suffrage (especially in Great Britain) to sacrifices made by women during WW1.

Dissent

• Long after Lysistrata, women have had a special role as opponents of war:
  • As the repositories of virtue
  • As mothers of soldiers
  • As wives and girlfriends of soldiers

Anti-Vietnam War Slogan

• "Girls Say Yes to Boys Who Say No": Encouraging draft avoidance.

"Hanoi" Jane Fonda

• A successful movie actor and outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War.
• Her meeting with North Vietnamese troops and posing on a tank undercut her efforts.
• She later expressed regret for this.
• Hated by some veterans but her career was not significantly impacted.
• The 1972 documentary FTA reveals her opposition.
• The 1978 film Coming Home highlighted issues of returning veterans.

FTA Tour

• "Free the Army" or "F*** the Army" tour of US bases in the Pacific w/ Donald Sutherland.
• Events for active duty dissenting soldiers.
• Not shut down by the US government.
• Fonda with John Kerry, decorated vet who became active in VVAW (Vietnam Veterans Against the War) and later a US senator, presidential candidate, and Secretary of State.
• Coming Home with Voight and Bruce Dern.

Combat: Exigency

• The most common factor affecting the breach of objections to women serving in combat roles has been exigency.
• Women fought for the USSR in WW2 because they had to.

Dahomey Amazons

• An all-female military regiment of the Kingdom of Dahomey (Benin, West Africa) from the 17th century to the late 19th century.
• The only female army in modern history.
• Named Amazons by Western Europeans due to the Greek mythology of female warriors.
• Known in the Fon language as Mino (“our mothers”) or Ahosi (“the king’s wives”).

US Civil War: Women in Combat

• Roughly 750 women enlisted due to lax recruitment physical checks.
• Women soldiers proved capable.

Jennie Hodges

• Enlisted and fought for the Union as Albert Cashier.

Combat: World War 2

• In addition to industry, nursing, logistics, home defense, and code breaking (7500 women at Bletchley Park, England), desperate exigency forced many women into combat.
• Most common in the Soviet Army.
• Over 800,000 women served in the Soviet armed forces in World War II, mostly as medics and nurses (over 3 percent of total personnel).
• Nearly 200,000 of them were decorated.

Soviet Women in Combat

• Marina Raskova: The "Russian Amelia Earhart" convinced Josef Stalin that women could be aviators, bombardiers, and fighter aces, and she trained hundreds to that end.
• Snipers Natalya Kovshova and Mariya Polivanova became posthumous heroines of the Soviet Union after committing suicide in battle to avoid capture.

Soviet Female Snipers

• Between 1941 and 1945, a total of 2,484 soviet female snipers were operating, of whom about 500 survived the war.
• Their combined tally of kill claims is at least 11,000.
• Lyudmila Pavlichenko: At least 309 confirmed kills made her one of the deadliest snipers in history; toured the US with Eleanor Roosevelt to promote US support and involvement in the war.

Combat: Israel

• Israel has a small population and is surrounded by enemies, leading to a strong commitment to defense.
• Drafting of young citizens into the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), including women.
• One of the few countries where military service is compulsory for all able-bodied female citizens.
• The IDF draws from the Jews, the Druze, and the Circassians.
• Arabs within Israel are exempt, as are Ultra-Orthodox Jews studying at yeshiva.