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Antimilitarism, Citizenship and Motherhood: the formation and early years of the Women’s International League (WIL), 1915 – 1919

Hellawell, Sarah (2017) Antimilitarism, Citizenship and Motherhood: the formation and early years of the Women’s International League (WIL), 1915 – 1919. Women's History Review, 27 (4). pp. 551-564. ISSN 0961-2025

Item Type: Article

Abstract

This article examines the concept of motherhood and peace in the British women’s movement during the Great War. It does so by focusing on the Women’s International League (WIL) – the British section of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). Drawing on the WIL papers, the article shows how a section of the movement continued to lobby for female representation during the war alongside its calls for peace. WIL referred to the social and cultural experiences of motherhood, which allowed it to challenge the discourse on gender and to build bridges between women of former enemy nations. This case study examines how maternalist rhetoric influenced feminism and sheds light on how British women attempted to enter the political sphere by linking women’s maternal experience to their demands for citizenship.

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More Information

Depositing User: Sarah Hellawell

Identifiers

Item ID: 8823
Identification Number: https://doi.org/10.1080/09612025.2017.1292625
ISSN: 0961-2025
URI: http://sure.sunderland.ac.uk/id/eprint/8823
Official URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/096120...

Users with ORCIDS

ORCID for Sarah Hellawell: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-1730-4812

Catalogue record

Date Deposited: 27 Mar 2018 13:35
Last Modified: 30 Sep 2020 11:04

Contributors

Author: Sarah Hellawell ORCID iD

University Divisions

Faculty of Education and Society

Subjects

Culture > History and Politics

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