Maria Boskareva Gender Roles

The role of females (regardless of loyalties) shifted dramatically from household partners to that of logisticians, medical and intelligence. While we are provided the details of camp followers and sutlers which have been part of military life since time immemorial, women took on various roles that were not explicitly conceived of in the

In the years after the Second World War, people created uncountable numbers of historiographical research on various topics related to the war, such as military tactics in battles, individual groups of men during their time in service, and other such subjects. Not much surprise exists then, that women’s actions in World War II eventually would also gain interest and publication for the public, though it did not gain an undivided focus until the advent of women’s and social history grew momentum. Women, despite being half of the world’s population, doubtlessly had acted during the war years, although limited by social gender expectations of the period. As time passes from 1945, more interest in the lives of women and their effect on the war

Many Jewish women did not join the partisans out of fear, and felt that their role was to remain loyal to their family, even if that meant death, and many men agreed with this. We see this with Meyer Orbuch who refused to take his sister into his partisan group saying, “no girls can go with us. Only boys can go (JPEF2).” So the women that did join partisans were already breaking free of the traditional roles that many people felt they should be playing as women. Women that joined the partisans wanted to live, and to avenge the humiliation that had been thrown upon them and their families. This concept of women wanting to fight and use a gun broke conventional roles and shows that they were not bound by

With the flow of war, there were several major tendencies that are generally corresponded with women of the time. The most important of them is the changing of roles they had to switch to in order to substitute missing men. While women were previously presented with the

During the Second World War, both married and unmarried women worked in wartime industries and factories to take the place of men who joined the service. Although women didn’t play a significant role on the battlefields in Europe compared to males, it would be logical to conclude that women played an integral role in the participation and victory in WWII both at home and abroad. Yet when one considers their contribution, it is hard to imagine how much more they could have done given the conservative views of gender role at that time. In the context of traditional gender roles and boundaries, women conceivably maximized their wartime efforts by working in a variety of jobs including industry, volunteering, and serving as support staff for

While family structure in the Soviet Union did change significantly during the first two decades of Communist government following the social revolution, there were also many ways in which it did not change, and some ways in which there was a return to traditional family structure during this time. Although there were changes to marriage and divorce laws, the role of women in the workplace, and the social ideas of male and female roles, inequality was still a significant issue. The attempts to create a new model of family life throughout the 1920s and 1930s, without traditional boundaries but with respect for individual rights, was unsuccessful in many ways, as women were still viewed as responsible for household duties and for raising children while men had much more sexual freedom than women. The early 1920s and the revolutionary concepts and laws which it introduced resulted in social disorder, with marriage breakdown, homelessness and poverty leading to a backlash against the changes in gender roles. Rather than blaming the lack of social services, many claimed that women needed to return to traditional roles and supply stability to the family, rather than considering the nation’s economic situation and the lack of social services as being the central issue.

Kimberly Jensen is a professor of history and gender studies at Western Oregon University, who dedicates her life to study women in history, a subject that is rather vague in most textbooks. Mobilizing Minerva is set mostly during the Great War of 1914; but, it also travels before and after the war to show the state of women before the war started and after it ended. It takes place in the United States but also explores the other countries affected by the Great War, Belgium, France, and Russia. The purpose of this book is to shed light on the discrimination women faced in the military and how they confronted them head on.

The importance of gender equality is not thoroughly acknowledged in a battlefield containing harsh conditions and may lead to death, as the male gender is seen as a better fit in warfare than the female gender. This has been a repertory opinion of the genders throughout history. War is particularly critical of women for supposedly being weaker and less intelligent than men as if women lack the ability to cope with war. Women may generally be seen on the sidelines of war, helping out the injured, but never caught up in the midst of combat. It is thought to be rare to find women interested in warfare. These are the opinions from the medics, who are men, in the short story, “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” by Tim O’Brien. The short story begins

Women, regardless of the opposition, were determined to support their armies and their beliefs even on the battlefield. The North and South armies of the country were fighting without proper organization from their respective governments, leading women to volunteer to help their men in whatever manner they could. Contributing to the war effort, women were “responsible for much of the clothing, feeding, and nursing of the soldiers.”18 Women would cook and do the laundry for the soldiers, working in camps away from the battlefield. Other women would provide comfort for the dying soldiers, nurturing the wounded and staying with the men who were dying until their last moments. Their efforts were to offset the fact that the wounded men were separated from their loved ones and “represented domestic tranquility in the midst of armed conflict.”19 Women were not prohibited from nursing injured soldiers because it was “not yet a profession requiring special training…care of the sick and injured was traditionally a female skill”20. Nursing was not the only important contribution that women provided during the war. They also worked within their communities to make up for the men who had left to fight in the war, managing homes and plantations,

In the United States, women played an imperative role that is clearly depicted in American history. Women’s significance was apparent in imperative historical events such as the American Revolution, struggle for independence, and the colonial America. During the American Revolution, women contributed significantly, where they played an active role in the American armies (Wayne & Tiffany 213). In this case, the women participated in the war as soldiers, where they fought alongside men, with the intention of overwhelming nations that took part in the revolutionary war. Women such as Deborah Sampson, Hannah Snell, among many others played an active role (women soldiers) during the revolutionary war. Their active participation in battle accounted for their rise in high military ranks. The likes of Deborah Sampson were named aide-de-camps to revolutionary war generals such as John Peterson.

However, female soldiers also have many tough things to do and face the risk of death. Although they join a war as nurses, they need to fight against an

“30 percent of RUF’s total forces, of the 1,213 children released in May, only 15 were girls” (Mckay 31). They are left abandoned to be sacrificed, killed, or tortured, solely because their gender makes them vulnerable and weak. During wartime, women and girls can be forced to carry out horrific duties, treated as sexual property given to soldiers as wives, and raped to the point of traumatization. Gender does not determine the roles girls have to take on. “Girls conducted suicide missions and mine sweeps, helped recruit and abduct other children…carried out punishment against others, such as killing those who attempted escape” (Mckay 33).

Russian culture is a melting pot of various combinations including ethnic groups, religions, and languages. Russia is the largest country in the world, with Moscow as its capital city. The population is about 145 million people which is composed of at least 175 ethnic groups. People of Russian descent make up about 77 % of the population. Russian is the main language, with at least another additional 100 other languages spoken there including English.

As female involvement increased in the Red Brigades, one would think their influence would increase as well. Though former female members of the Red Brigades report that gender equality was maintained in the organization, it has been proven that no woman had ever sat on the Brigades' strategy-making body. Not to say that there was any distinct discrimination, but men were certainly listened to more. However, "gender per se does not necessarily seem to have determined differenced in attitudes to the exercise of violence, which were the product of individual character and experience." (Jamieson 56) If a woman had the will to perform in such violent situations, they found the way to make it happen.

Bourdieu claims that it is not enough to look at what was said or what happened in order to understand interactions between people, or to describe a social phenomenon or an event. It is vital to investigate the social space in which interactions, transactions and events took place (Bourdieu, 2005). Bourdieu defines field as: