Search results
5 Reasserting work, space and gender boundaries at the end of the Second World War When you come out of the Forces you will have eight weeks’ leave in which to look round and take stock of your position … You have seen much, and you will bring to civilian life a broadened outlook. It may be that during your period of service you concentrated on one special branch of nursing work, while possibly losing touch with developments in other fields. Perhaps you held posts of great responsibility … While you have been away, those at home have had to carry on as best they
Negotiating nursing explores how the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service (Q.A.s) salvaged men within the sensitive gender negotiations of what should and could constitute nursing work and where that work could occur. The book argues that the Q.A.s, an entirely female force during the Second World War, were essential to recovering men physically, emotionally and spiritually from the battlefield and for the war, despite concerns about their presence on the frontline. The book maps the developments in nurses’ work as the Q.A.s created a legitimate space for themselves in war zones and established nurses’ position as the expert at the bedside. Using a range of personal testimony the book demonstrates how the exigencies of war demanded nurses alter the methods of nursing practice and the professional boundaries in which they had traditionally worked, in order to care for their soldier-patients in the challenging environments of a war zone. Although they may have transformed practice, their position in war was highly gendered and it was gender in the post-war era that prevented their considerable skills from being transferred to the new welfare state, as the women of Britain were returned to the home and hearth. The aftermath of war may therefore have augured professional disappointment for some nursing sisters, yet their contribution to nursing knowledge and practice was, and remains, significant.
domesticated within their protection systems. This line of inquiry considers how current gender boundaries have developed historically and in relation to the political process in Israel. Second, within the context of these gender boundaries and symbols, the chapter turns to the politics of women’s resistance in order to explore women’s alternative understandings of security. Israeli women have organized around
African American character as her most intimate companion.10 Thus, the gendering of national bildungsroman conventions is not upheld in the contemporary American novels that are our focus in this chapter. However, we see no simple re-gendering, but rather a troubling of gendered boundaries, a blending of genre conventions that were formerly more unambiguously gendered. The Cider House Rules is largely set in an orphanage, whereas Ellen Foster, true to her name, becomes a foster child in a new family. As already suggested in the brief outline of the socio
focus particularly on the increased profile of women both behind and in front of the camera. We then attempt to deal with representations of patriarchy and masculinity and the contradictory images these can produce. We also explore the evidence of a more radical questioning of traditionally-erected gender boundaries and the promotion of a more eclectic range of models for sexual orientation and personal and family
writings from courtly libertine texts, Killigrew looked to religious narratives for inspiration in articulating a self that was both witty and sacred, a unique artistic position in an age when wit became synonymous with irreligious expressions and outrageous libertinism. This chapter examines that ‘self’ – a spiritual wit – in Killigrew’s verse and the larger implications for the gendered boundaries that women writing in the period negotiated. Killigrew’s interest in religious subjects was not uncommon for women artists of the time. A maid of honour to Mary of Modena
As the ‘Female other’ of World War 1, the Eastern Front, and in particular Serbia, provided British women with unique opportunities for involvement. Serbia enabled women to experience the war at close range, often facing many of the same threats as combat soldiers. Here female bodies were put to the test in ways not previously imagined, and some women explored gender roles in unexpected ways. This chapter examines the ways in which this stark new experience pushed societal understandings of gender boundaries through the experience of two very different women, Mabel Dearmer, a hospital orderly who worked and died in Serbia in 1915 and Flora Sandes, a nurse-turned-soldier whose experience questions accepted understandings of gendered war experience. The chapter considers various elements that might shape or alter gender expectations, such as dress, uniform, performance and behaviour patterns. It sets out the conventional expectations of Edwardian femininity and then juxtaposes them with the actual physical and emotional experience of life on the Eastern Front.
This is the first book-length study of one of the most significant of all British television writers, Jimmy McGovern. The book provides comprehensive coverage of all his work for television including early writing on Brookside, major documentary dramas such as Hillsborough and Sunday and more recent series such as The Street and Accused.
Whilst the book is firmly focused on McGovern’s own work, the range of his output over the period in which he has been working also provides something of an overview of the radical changes in television drama commissioning that have taken place during this time. Without compromising his deeply-held convictions McGovern has managed to adapt to an ever changing environment, often using his position as a sought-after writer to defy industry trends.
The book also challenges the notion of McGovern as an uncomplicated social realist in stylistic terms. Looking particularly at his later work, a case is made for McGovern employing a greater range of narrative approaches, albeit subtly and within boundaries that allow him to continue to write for large popular audiences.
Finally it is worth pointing to the book’s examination of McGovern’s role in recent years as a mentor to new voices, frequently acting as a creative producer on series that he part-writes and part brings through different less-experienced names.
Victorian touring actresses: Crossing boundaries and negotiating the cultural landscape provides a new perspective on the on- and offstage lives of women working in nineteenth-century theatre, and affirms the central role of touring, both within the United Kingdom and in North America and Australasia. Drawing on extensive archival research, it features a cross-section of neglected performers whose dramatic specialisms range from tragedy to burlesque. Although they were employed as stars in their own time, their contribution to the industry has largely been forgotten. The book’s innovative organisation follows a natural lifecycle, enabling a detailed examination of the practical challenges and opportunities typically encountered by the actress at each stage of her working life. Individual experiences are scrutinised to highlight the career implications of strategies adopted to cope with the demands of the profession, the physical potential of the actress’s body, and the operation of gendered power on and offstage. Analysis is situated in a wide contextual framework and reveals how reception and success depended on the performer’s response to the changing political, economic, social and cultural landscape as well as to developments in professional practice and organisation. The book concludes with discussion of the legacies of the performers, linking their experiences to the present-day situation.
bildungsroman and challenge its conventional gender boundaries. In the process, the novels describe the kinship building of the protagonists, who develop complex understandings of kinship ties and a consciously affirmative stance on the value of ‘alternative family.’ Chapter 5, ‘At home in the world?: Orphans learn and remember in African American novels,’ offers analyses of African American orphans in Octavia Butler’s Fledgling (2005), Jewelle Gomez’s The Gilda Stories (1991), and Toni Morrison’s A Mercy (2008). These writers employ genres like the vampire novel and the