Sex, the state and the ‘scarlet scourge’: gender, citizenship and venereal diseases regulation in Australia during the great war [1]

Abstract

Venereal diseases policy in Australia during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries ran parallel to the changing assessment of the defence needs of the colonies and nation and, with those needs, developing ideas about the specifically gendered duties and requirements of citizenship. This article argues that the coalescence of these three discourses was only possible in the context of the first total war. Because defence needs and the duties of citizenship made the conscription of young men's bodies possible, the same requirements of total war for involvement by the whole society made the control of young women's bodies seem equally necessary because their unconstrained sexuality-signified by the figure of the 'amateur'-was represented as being dangerous to the fighting strength of the armed forces and to the reproducibility of the nation.

‘The Quality and Not Only the Quantity of Australia's People’

“…The sexual activities of Australian soldiers during wartime also rendered the spread of venereal disease a question of national defence and hence an official government concern. Meanwhile, the increased visibility of prostitution and the growing independence of women prompted fears that a newfound atmosphere of sexual permissiveness would cause an exponential increase in the incidence of sexually transmitted disease (Smart 1998;Lemar 2004, 67Á72). Thus, an unlikely combination of moral perturbation and greater frankness about sexual health led the prevention of venereal disease to come under increasing public scrutiny during the interwar decades, and the RHA was only one of several movements which attempted to address this issue (Reiger 1985, 193).…”

Η Νοηματοδότηση Της Εμπειρίας Του Εγκλεισμού Και Η (Ανα)κατασκευή Της Ταυτότητας Έγκλειστων Γυναικών: Ποιοτική Μελέτη

“…Έχει υποστηριχθεί ότι η μητρότητα αποτελεί συνάμα θετική πηγή ευχαρίστησης και σχηματισμού της ταυτότητας, αλλά και φορέας κοινωνικού ελέγχου των γυναικών. Σε αυτό το πλαίσιο, η μητρότητα θεωρείται ότι αποτελεί κεντρικό συστατικό στοιχείο της ταυτότητας, της καθημερινής δραστηριότητας και των σχεδίων ζωής, ενώ παράλληλα οι κοινωνικές προσδοκίες για την μητρότητα ενισχύουν την καταπιεστική θέαση της θηλυκότητας, εμπερικλείοντας την αυτοθυσία και την υποταγή των προσωπικών στόχων για τις ανάγκες της οικογένειας (Smart, 1998). Έχει υποστηριχθεί μάλιστα ότι οι ζωές των γυναικών κρίνονται με βάση το κυρίαρχο ιδανικό της μητρότητας (Kline, 1995).…”

Sex education debates and the modest mother in Australia, 1890s to the 1930s

“…Teaching their children about sex, mothers were expected to prepare them for the perils of the modern world and to stem the progress of the non-reproductive, eroticised sexuality we recognise today. But though their aim was in some ways socially conservative, because they held true to their ideals of marriage and chastity, as Judith Smart has recently argued [2], they nevertheless tried to influence children's understanding of sex not with mere moral admonitions but with a series of educational techniques which placed sex in a healthy, natural and even 'God-given' setting. This article discusses the way churchwomen attempted to move public discussion of sex away from sin and venereal disease through their outreach to children.…”