Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies Center for International Security and Cooperation Stanford University


Publications




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The Nation's Pain and Women's Shame: Polish Women and Wartime Violence

Book Chapter

Authors
Katherine Jolluck - Stanford University
Nancy Meriwether Wingfield, ed.
Maria Bucur, ed.

Published by
Indiana University Press in "Gender and War in Twentieth-Century Eastern Europe", 2006

Clothcover (0-253-34731-9) - $65.00


This volume explores the role of gender on both the home and fighting fronts in eastern Europe during World Wars I and II. By using gender as a category of analysis, the authors seek to arrive at a more nuanced understanding of the subjective nature of wartime experience and its representations. While historians have long equated the fighting front with the masculine and the home front with the feminine, the contributors challenge these dichotomies, demonstrating that they are based on culturally embedded assumptions about heroism and sacrifice. Major themes include the ways in which wartime experiences challenge traditional gender roles; postwar restoration of gender order; collaboration and resistance; the body; and memory and commemoration.