Digital resources in the Social Sciences and Humanities OpenEdition Our platforms OpenEdition Books OpenEdition Journals Hypotheses Calenda Libraries OpenEdition Freemium Follow us

‘Woman’s Work’? What Debates about Policewomen in the Inter-War Period Tell Us about Contemporary Understandings of Sexual Violence

‘It’s a woman’s work.’ With these words, a 1939 leaflet encouraged women to join the Metropolitan Women Police, which at this point had existed for twenty years. While one of the photos in the brochure shows female officers learning self-defence, other pictures emphasize more gender-conformist tasks: a photo of a female officer comforting a child is captioned ‘Her first job’.1 Louise A. Jackson’s 2006 book on the history of female police officers in the UK has commented on their ambivalent position between welfare work and policing.2 Jackson has shown that the decision to recruit female police officers in the early twentieth century was influenced by the contemporary idea that victims of sexual assault should give their statements to women. According to her, the difference female police officers made was ‘structural rather than ideological’, as they operated on the basis of prejudices towards complainants of sexual violence that were similar to those of their male counterparts.3 Instead of discussing the practices of policewomen, however, my blog post focuses on the debates about the nature of their employment, as well as that of female doctors, and asks what these reveal about contemporary understandings of sexual violence and victimhood.

Graphic illustration of the head of a policewoman in profile, with Trafalgar Square in the background, under the headline 'It's a woman's work'.

Fig. 1: Leaflet: ‘It’s a Woman’s Work’. Courtesy of The Women’s Library at LSE, 4NVA/4/06/11

Continue reading ‘Woman’s Work’? What Debates about Policewomen in the Inter-War Period Tell Us about Contemporary Understandings of Sexual Violence
  1. The Women’s Library at LSE (hereafter TWL), 4NVA/4/06/11, Leaflet: ‘It’s a Woman’s Work’, 112 WP, The Metropolitan Women Police. A Career for Women (June 1939). []
  2. Louise Jackson, Women Police: Gender, Welfare and Surveillance in the Twentieth Century (Manchester, 2006). []
  3. Louise Jackson, Women Police: Gender, Welfare and Surveillance in the Twentieth Century (Manchester, 2006). P.171 []

The Welsh Fasting Girl: A Morbid Spectacle

The story of Sarah Jacob is a tragic one.1 On 17 December 1869, when she was not yet 13 years old, she died of starvation. There was no shortage of food or unwillingness to provide her with food, had she asked for it. Her family, trained nurses, and male doctors were around her when she passed away, but they all quite literally watched her die.

Continue reading The Welsh Fasting Girl: A Morbid Spectacle
  1. E.g. ‘The drama of the Welsh fasting girl […] has ended tragically’. Anon., ‘The Week. Topics of the Day’, The Medical Times and Gazette, 25 Dec. 1869, 738 (my emphases); ‘The second act of the Carmarthen Tragedy has been played out’. Anon., No Title, The Western Mail, 27 Dec. 1869, 2. []

Sustaining ‘Information for Women’: The Informationsdienst für Frauenfragen, the American Military Occupation, and Women’s Politics in West Germany, 1951–1990

‘The Women’s Affairs unit…is based on the recognition of the fact that German women are in a decisive position either to promote or retard the development of Germany as a democratic state.’1 This statement appeared as part of a 1949 report by the Women’s Affairs branch of the Office of Military Government, United States (OMGUS). The post-war ‘surplus’ of women meant that there were an estimated 7 million more women than men across occupied Germany. As such, the Western authorities (in this case, American) invested time and resources in the late 1940s and early 1950s in ‘retraining’ programs for women.

Continue reading Sustaining ‘Information for Women’: The Informationsdienst für Frauenfragen, the American Military Occupation, and Women’s Politics in West Germany, 1951–1990
  1. National Archives, College Park, Maryland, Reports Women’s Affairs, box 51, file 5, Women’s Affairs Branch, Semi-Annual Report, 1 July-31 December 1949 (accessed July 2008). []

The Media, Feminism and Women’s Emancipation: The International Standing Working Group on Medialization and Empowerment

In late 2017, #MeToo began trending on Twitter. Taken up in response to growing allegations of sexual harassment in Hollywood, it quickly became a tangible way for women to show the pervasive nature of gender-based violence and harassment. #MeToo sparked a movement and global reckoning with gender inequality and revealed the mass mobilizing power of social media.

Continue reading The Media, Feminism and Women’s Emancipation: The International Standing Working Group on Medialization and Empowerment

‘Is this home? Not so much!’ – Gender, Ethnicity and Belongingness to the City

Lily and Esther have been in New Delhi for 17 and 22 years respectively. The former came to the city as a fresh graduate to pursue a Masters and the latter, to do an undergraduate degree. They have several things in common, despite differences in their ages and experience. Both belong to the north-eastern states of India, though from a different city and tribe. One identifies herself as a Naga, the other as a Mizo. Their ethnic identities, they point out, are evident from their facial features – a flat nose, small eyes and a heavily accented Hindi they speak.

Continue reading ‘Is this home? Not so much!’ – Gender, Ethnicity and Belongingness to the City