The Woman’s Body as Compensation for the Disabled First World War Soldier

Macdonald, Kate

doi:10.3828/jlcds.2016.4

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…An additional social concern that is clearly manifested in the play is the direct connection between the serviceman's bodily impairment and his remasculinisation. The fiction in the research corpus also reflects this strongly, and, indeed, the woman given as a compensatory, remasculinizing reward to the returned and war-wounded soldier is the trope most often used across the corpus (Macdonald, 2016b;Macdonald, 2016c). Soldier 241 speaks of his wife and his sons, and performs an act of violence which reaffirms his competence as a soldier, confirming his mastery of his situation.…”

Section: War-wounded Servicemenmentioning

confidence: 86%

The First Cyborg and First World War Bodies as Anti-War Propaganda

Macdonald

2016

Journal of War & Culture Studies

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This article discusses a play published in The Strand Magazine during the First World War which features a cyborg presenting anti-war and pacifist messages, used by The Strand to create anti-German propaganda. The article draws on theories of disability, cyborgs and the posthuman, and from new research on wartime fiction magazines. The importance of the cyborg character, Soldier 241, for the literary history of science fiction is explored by focusing on the relations between the mechanical and the impaired body, and on the First World War as a nexus for technological, surgical and military development. As a cyborg, thischaracter reflects politicized desires that the wartime authorities did not acknowledge: a longing for the end of war, and refusal to countenance a society that rejected the impaired body.

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Section: War-wounded Servicemenmentioning

confidence: 86%

The First Cyborg and First World War Bodies as Anti-War Propaganda

Macdonald

2016

Journal of War & Culture Studies

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“…Within these stories, it was the love of a woman that enabled men to overcome their disfigurements or disabilities. 93 Nurses have been historically subjected to complex associations with angelic, maternal caring qualities and sexual availability. 94 Therefore, while being aware of modern day implications of these behaviours, we must try to understand them in relation to the attitudes and expectations of women as nurses at the time.…”

Section: Members Of the Guinea Pig Club Appreciatedmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Lashings of Grog and Girls’: Masculinity and Sexuality in the Rehabilitation of Facially Disfigured Servicemen in the Second World War

Wood

2021

War & Society

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This article explores the importance of masculinity in the rehabilitation experience of members of the Royal Air Force who were facially disfigured during the Second World War. Other historical work has highlighted the significance of masculinity in the rehabilitation of other groups of disabled veterans, but the experience of the facially disfigured is somewhat neglected. This article investigates the methods employed at Rooksdown House and East Grinstead Hospital where men suffering from burns injuries and disfigurements were both physically and psychologically rehabilitated. It explores the key themes of hospital environment, occupational therapy and relationships. In using oral histories and memoirs this article argues that masculinity and sexuality were key aspects of servicemen's identity that had to be restored through rehabilitation to ensure their successful reintegration into society. KEYWORDS Disability; Masculinity; Sexuality; Rehabilitation; Second World War I received an incendiary in the starboard tank … my aircraft burst into flames … I tried to get out but was unable to move because of burns, the aircraft blew up and I was blown clear that's why I'm still here. 1 Royal Air Force (RAF) pilot Thomas Gleave was shot down in 1940, receiving severe burns to his face, hands and legs. Gleave, was one of almost 5000 men in the RAF Home Forces who received burn injuries during the Second World War. While men of all three services were affected by burns, RAF aircrew were particularly susceptible because pilots sat directly behind the main or gravity fuel tank meaning if it was hit their faces were exposed to the full impact of an exploding tank. 2 Advancements in medicine and surgery meant servicemen were surviving injuries they would not have

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“…55 However, the 'sensory, affective and psychological' appeal of craft operated only at the level of rehabilitation that ultimately desired to remasculinise the veteran before returning him to civilian life reinforcing rather than contesting the 'traditional role of women as nurturing and self-abnegating.' 56 This takes into account little of the actual achievements of the Disabled Soldiers' Embroidery Industry, which although sharing much with the short-lived workshops established to teach crafts to soldiers throughout the country, it managed to cultivate and maintain a strong customer-base and grow exponentially as a business in the precarious interwar decades.…”

Section: Poverty and Embroiderymentioning

confidence: 99%

‘The work of masculine fingers’: the Disabled Soldiers’ Embroidery Industry, 1918–1955

McBrinn¹

2016

DESIGN

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Embroidery as a feminising activity for men, as a sign of emasculation and effeminacy that also insinuates sexual inversion, although generally overlooked by historians was widely deliberated in early twentieth century Britain. Operating between 1918 and 1955 the Disabled Soldiers' Embroidery Industry was perhaps the most successful and high-profile scheme that aimed to help disabled combatants, returning from the First World War, back to employment through the smallscale production of domestic and luxury textiles marketed to middle class and aristocratic consumers. Its contribution to the modern revival of interest in embroidery is clear from its widespread promotion in newspapers and women's magazines, its relationship with manufacturers such as Pearsall's sewing threads and Weldon's mail-order sewing patterns, its inclusion in major exhibitions of embroidery in the period and the several major commissions it garnered until after the Second World War. This brief analysis of its history, made possible by the recent discovery of a small archive of its papers and a number of surviving embroideries, affords some insight into how masculine identity and the disabled body have operated as active rather than passive agents in design history. This article, although providing a basic overview of this business, also offers an interrogation of the interrelationship of masculinity, disability, craft and interwar modernity in Britain that draws upon design history, gender and sexuality theory and disability studies.

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The Woman’s Body as Compensation for the Disabled First World War Soldier

Cited by 7 publications

References 15 publications

The First Cyborg and First World War Bodies as Anti-War Propaganda

The First Cyborg and First World War Bodies as Anti-War Propaganda

‘Lashings of Grog and Girls’: Masculinity and Sexuality in the Rehabilitation of Facially Disfigured Servicemen in the Second World War

‘The work of masculine fingers’: the Disabled Soldiers’ Embroidery Industry, 1918–1955

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