Representation and Resistance: The Representation of Male and Female War Resisters of the First World War

This thesis explores press representations of male and female war resisters of the First World War during both the conflict and important points of its commemoration, with a specific focus on gender. My original contribution to knowledge is twofold. First, this thesis shows the significant ways that gendered representations of anti-war women and men responded to one another, creating a shifting depiction of the anti-war movement as a whole. The gendering of male and female resisters drew on, reinforced, and contested both pre-war and wartime conceptions of gender in a variety of ways and this thesis demonstrates how the construction of gender and resistance has implications for understanding the relationship between gender and war more broadly. The second original contribution to knowledge that this study makes is the connection between the depiction of masculinity and femininity during the conflict and the way that anti-war men and women have been included in commemorative narratives. Uncovering this connection underscores the importance of considering the role that gender plays in commemoration and the endurance of particular wartime gendered constructions in the interpretation of the war in the present day.

Using a chronological approach, this study explores the key narratives of resistance in both pro-war and anti-war press publications. It demonstrates the central role that the press has played as a key conduit through which public narratives of resistance have been formed, reinforced, and contested. The analysis throughout this thesis highlights how the press has offered a space in which the public have contributed to the shaping of these narratives in ways that have been implicitly and explicitly gendered both during the war and its commemoration. Consequently, this study demonstrates how the press has facilitated and played a key role in the important relationship that resistance has to gender, war, and memory.