Gendering class, patriotism, and militarism: The Women's Corps movement in Britain during and after World War I

This dissertation is a study of the British Women's Corps movement, whose members performed military support functions during World War I for the British armed forces, replacing servicemen in auxiliary positions and releasing them for active duty. Focusing on the membership of the movement, it examines the impact of women's participation in the corps on their personal lives and the influence of their military employment on postwar class and gender relations. In order to assess change from women's point of view, I discuss the motives which inspired them to create and join the corps and see to what degree they achieved their ambitions through their war service. In order to test the durability of change, I follow women's lives through the interwar period until after World War II. The study also examines how auxiliaries constructed their war experience. Focusing on the organization, work, symbols, ceremonies, and public relations of the corps, it analyzes the meaning of women's martial values and practices as well as their patriotic ideology.;I argue that by adopting military values and duties, members of the corps created a new gender role, female soldiering, constructed a new model of femininity, that of the servicewoman, and redefined gender relations within the armed forces, describing themselves as the comrades of servicemen. These changes altered women's place in the body politic. By participating in the military defense of the country, the auxiliaries protected and upheld the nation, satisfying the chief condition of citizenship, which authorities acknowledged by recognizing corps members' martial identity and contribution to victory. The construction of new gender categories also altered relations of class. Although social position continued to influence the assignment of duties in the corps and particularistic loyalties divided the membership, the selection and promotion of women based on experience allowed the occasional transcendence of class boundaries and all corps members could adopt the collective martial identity of the movement. Due to their military organization and consciousness, members of the corps benefited from their wartime participation throughout their lives. The prewar definition of their martial and patriotic ideology, however, impeded their efforts to produce a wider transformation in women's social position in the short term.