“I am myself it”: comparative national identity formation in the lives of Vera Brittain and Edith Stein

Abstract

This is a study of the tranformational impact of their World War One experiences on the national identities of two eminent feminist intellectuals, Vera Brittain and Edith Stein, each a volunteer Red Cross nurse on opposing warfronts. The essay examines how their gender, ethnicity, social class, and feminism intersect within this identity. To assess the War's impact, the author first probes – through extensive research in unpublished and recently published documents – the nature and evolution of Brittain and Stein's pre-war national identities, identities featuring a complex and ambiguous interplay of European and national consciousness. Through analysis of the tension between national and European identity in Brittain's and Stein's lives, the essay highlights key questions with regard to national similarities and differences in women's wartime experiences, as well as revealing critical factors vital to wider analysis of the War's impact on female national identity, particularly among educated middle-class German and British women.     

Darning,Doylies and Dancing: the work of the Leeds Association of Girls' Clubs (1904–1913)

The Leeds Association of Girls' Clubs (LAGC) was set up by a group of women, including Hilda Hargrove, Dr Lucy Buckley and Mary and Margaret Harvey, to promote collaboration between the city's girls' clubs. The organisation epitomised women working in partnership whilst reflecting their differing philanthropic and political interests. However LAGC's collaborative approach resulted in liberal consensus which downplayed the significance of girls' working conditions. Throughout the decade LAGC's focus was its annual competitions. These featured utilitarian and decorative handicrafts (darning and doylies) enshrining both frugality and aspiration, alongside dance and drill which channelled girls' vigour. Nevertheless, LAGC's resilience resulted in an organisation which is still in existence.     

Doctors Doing Gender at Eye Clinics—Gender Constructions in Relation to Waiting Times for Cataract Extractions in Sweden

Why do eye clinics differ in their waiting times for women’s and men’s access to cataract extraction (CE)/“grå starroperation”? Taking a doing-gender perspective as the starting point, this study explores how gender constructions embedded in Swedish eye clinics contribute to longer waiting times for women than for men. Focus group interviews were conducted with doctors at two Swedish eye clinics: one with a larger and another with a smaller than average gender difference in waiting times for CE. Several differences were found between the clinics regarding how gender was constructed: Women and men were constructed as different with respect to ascribed traits such as assertiveness and care-seeking behaviour. Their need for visual acuity in working life was perceived as different by the doctors, and the study indicates differences between the clinics regarding their interest and awareness concerning issues related to inequity, reflected in the dissimilar prevalence of jokes with racist and misogynist connotations at the two clinics.     

Everything will be in order

The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries represented a period of new conceptual theorizations of “woman” both in the sphere of biological discourse and in literature and philosophy. My focus in this article is on how G.W.F. Hegel constructs gender identity and gender difference philosophically and conceptually. I argue that although the concept “gender identity” was not part of nineteenth‐century vocabulary, Hegel does in fact construct gender difference through a conceptual differentiation between reflexive self‐differentiation and undifferentiated identity constructed as a “difference from difference”. This fundamental logic of gender difference is apparent both in the sphere of Hegel's natural philosophy, in bodily differences between male and female bodies, and in the sphere of social life, in the differentiated spheres of action Hegel prescribes for men and women. Behind both the female body and the position of women as belonging to only one domestic sphere of action lies for Hegel the undifferentiation of spirit, the incapacity to active self‐differentiation and divided or “torn” self‐consciousness. The male body and the position of man as citizen, in contrast, are described by Hegel to be determined by their inner and outer negativity, struggle, and differentiation.     

A sporting chance: The anatomy of destiny?

We begin this paper by drawing a parallel between women's exclusion from sport and their exclusion from science. Both are stereotypically masculine fields, which women enter only at risk of losing their identity. Moreover, both have justified the exclusion of women by recourse to biological arguments that women are inferior. It is thus not surprising that the combination of these fields in “sports science” adds further justification. We look at some of these biological arguments here, and at how they serve to limit women's participation in sport. Feminists have accepted that biological differences between women and men exist, and have either (i) argued for integration in sports, assuming that the differences are, or will be, unimportant, or (ii) argued for separate spheres, because of existing sex/gender differences. But both of these viewpoints still see our biology as fixed. We argue instead that “biology” can itself be subject to change, and that a truly feminist understanding of women and sport must take the possible transformation of physiology into account.     

Working for Jewish girls: Lily Montagu,girls' clubs and industrial reform 1890-1914

Lily Montagu was involved in social work and religious ministry with the London Jewish community for over sixty years. This article considers the significance of her involvement in the girls' club movement and her efforts towards workplace reform. It argues that the specific circumstances of working-class Jewish girls in the early twentieth century enabled her to develop a comprehensive view of both industrial organisation and social work. Her approach was submerged as social work and trade unionism diverged along fault lines of gender, but continues to raise issues of relevance today.     

Feeling Gender. A Generational and Psychosocial Approach

The article focuses on female same-sex intimacy, specifically so-called “mummy–baby” relationships among schoolgirls in contemporary South Africa. The underlying negotiations with colonial but also post-colonial discourses of sexuality, identity, and gender, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer (LGBTIQ) rights, and the problem of naming, are examined here. While post-apartheid South Africa was the first country in the world to explicitly incorporate lesbian and gay rights within the Bill of Rights of the Constitution, the surrounding countries chose to exclude lesbians and gay men from citizenship rights by proclaiming, in a populist way, the idea of homosexuality as un-African, a discourse also forming within South Africa itself. The term “homosexuality”, as defined through more than three decades of feminism and gay liberation, however, does not describe the complexities of same-sex practices throughout history. “Mummy–baby” relationships as a culturally specific form of female same-sex intimacy, especially in relation to homosociality as a form of gender intimacy and the sexuality apparatus, are analysed here. The article looks at girls' relationships as spaces in which homosociality, same-sex intimacy, and erotic practices can join together; however, the latter is increasingly joined by homophobia. I argue that the “closet” violently jars with some same-sex relationships, such as “mummy–baby” relationships, because they have never been closeted as such.     

Personality structure and identity status in women as viewed through early memories

Early memories were obtained from women in the four identity status categories and rated for developmental level in an effort to assess deeper aspects of personality development that underlie identity formation. In contrast to some previous research which has found similarities between Achievement and Foreclosure women and between Moratorium and Diffusion women, this study found that Moratorium women show greater ego development in contrast to the Foreclosures. Achievement women were found to blend aspects of both Foreclosure and Moratorium patterns, suggesting that their approach to identity formation may be through a form of rapprochement.Received Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. Research interest is identity formation in women.     

The Functions of Class at the Present Time: Including Taste,or Sex and Class as Culture

Gagnier provides an analytic account of current uses of gender, sex and sexuality, and of class as objective condition, role, identity, subjectivity, performance, product of cultural formation, pain and pleasure. She concludes that we shall do better today to take from the history of political economy a focus on the division of labour, the kinds of work people do, including women's unpaid labour at home, and the ways that work structures identity and subjectivity, than on more abstract class identity (e.g. wage-labourers and capitalists), and to see that both local and global divisions of labour or work patterns are along race and gender lines as much as along class lines. The introduction of consumption models of taste and status draws together both class and gender, for consumption and leisure, the realm for most wage-labourers of pleasure, is as significant in the formation of identity and subjectivity as work, production or pain. We should account for people's pleasures and desires as well as their pain and place in narrowly conceived 'productive' relations. Class is no less significant than it always was, but future work should disaggregate the concept along these lines, mindful of gender salience in the division of labour and the reproduction of class. And it should include critical analysis of the realms of taste, pleasure, consumption, leisure and status.     

‘It's easier that you're a girl and that you're Asian’: interactions of ‘race’ and gender between researchers and participants

This article is concerned with the ways in which ‘race’ and gender interact between interviewers and participants within the research process and the implications of differences/similarities between researcher and participants for feminist research and analysis. The paper discusses issues of power and representation within a research project conducted by the white female author and two Asian female interviewers with 64 British Muslim young men and women. Based on analysis of discussion group data, it is argued that ‘race’ and gender interact between researchers and participants in highly complex and unpredictable ways to produce particular accounts, but comparative analysis of accounts produced with different interviewers can help reveal ‘hidden’ structures of power within the texts.     

remembering home: nation and identity in the recent writing of Doris Lessing

In the UK, the writing of Doris Lessing has frequently been associated with left-wing politics and the second-wave feminist movement. Critics have concentrated primarily on issues of class and gender and have focused their attention on novels published in the 1950s and 1960s. This essay suggests that Lessing's work is over-ripe for reassessment in relation to ideas from post-colonial theory. Her writing repeatedly addresses questions about national identity and its imbrications with ‘race’. These ideas intersect in complex ways with her more familiar analysis of gender and class. This essay discusses Lessing's recent novel The Sweetest Dream (2001), which was widely read as an attack on the political idealism of the 1960s. It relates the novel to her collection of essays, African Laughter (1992), her recent essay on the situation in Zimbabwe, ‘The Jewel of Africa’ (2003) and the second volume of her autobiography, Walking in the Shade (1997). Zimbabwe (previously Southern Rhodesia) is of crucial importance in these works. The article explores how Lessing makes use of notions of city, home and memory that can be instructively compared with some of Toni Morrison's ideas in her novel Beloved (1987) and the essays ‘Home’ (1998) and ‘The Site of Memory’ (1990). Lessing revises the notion of ‘home’ so that it becomes capable of both recognizing racial and national differences and moving outside them. She also interprets memory as productive for the individual and the nation only when it becomes, as Morrison would say, ‘rememory’: when it can acknowledge the importance of imagination in dealing with trauma and thus suggest the fluctuating, mobile status of identity. The article demonstrates that similar ideas about home and memory are present in her fiction, essay and autobiography, indicating that her intention is to explore generic classification and blur the boundaries between different methods of writing personal and political history. Lessing's work strongly suggests the possibility that apparently ‘fictional’ writings may be more fruitful than ostensibly factual ones in allowing individuals and nations to make sense of their immediate pasts.     

Adolescence,embodiment and gender identity in contemporary india: Elite women in a changing society

This article is based on primary research among young middle-class women in school in India. It attempts to understand the processes in families and schools that contribute to the reproduction and creation of a class and gender specific habitus, as well as the factors that lead to the formation of a particular kind of identity that is located in the transitory moment of both reproduction and change in contemporary Indian society. It is argued that recolonization is the most significant social process in the postcolonial culture that constitutes urban, Indian society, and this undoubtedly shapes gender identity in different ways. The family is the ground on which the heterosexual patriarchal ideal is nurtured and sustained. At the same time, the influence of peer group cultures on young women's and men's perceptions of their embodied selves and gender identity is significant. Their perceptions of their identities are grounded in prevailing media images and clearly young women and men consciously create, devise, and formulate their own rules for conduct, appearance, and self-presentation within the complexity that is characteristic of a changing society.     

Changing patterns? Reflections on contemporary Swedish research and debate on gender and education

In this article I discuss some themes concerning gender and education in Sweden by focussing in particular on the supposedly changing gender patterns as put forward by contemporary research and debate. Positions seem to have changed, as girls are no longer described in terms of a fairly uncontested subordination. While the analysis of girls' schooling now emphasizes their active positioning, there is an increased focus on the constraints faced by various groups of boys. Aspects of this understanding, as well as an orientation towards boys going along with the perceived change in gender patterns, will be discussed.     

Relationship among ego identity status,field-independence,and traditional femininity

Fifty-five senior college women were given an ego identity status interview, two measures of field-independence (the Embedded Figures Test and figure drawings), and the Gough Femininity Scale. A significant relationship was found between ego identity status and field-independence, as measured by the EFT. Women in those identity statuses defined by occupational, ideological, and sexual commitment (Achievement and Foreclosure) were significantly more field-independent than women in those statuses which were not committed to elements of psychosocial identity (Moratorium and Diffusion). There was a trend toward a significant relationship between ego identity status and traditional femininity. No relationship was found between field-independence and traditional femininity.     

‘I Had the Men from the Start’: General Benjamin Butler's occupation of New Orleans

Existing historiography asserts that General Benjamin Butler manipulated conceptions of gender in his issuance of General Order 28 in Union-occupied New Orleans during the American Civil War. This article examines how women were prosecuted under General Order 28, using the imprisonment of Eugenia Phillips as a case study. Furthermore, the article proposes that Butler's manipulation of gender in General Order 28 must be considered alongside his manipulation of race in ‘Butler's Fugitive Slave Law’ in order to more fully understand the interplay between the politics of identity and the politics of occupation in the American Civil War.     

Women facing the state: Childcare policy process in Canada and Finland, 1960–90

The examination of women's influence on government policy is an integral part of comparative research into women and the welfare state. Focusing on the process of childcare policy development in Canada and Finland, this article suggests that the degree and nature of women's influence depend on the extent to which women's organizations representing different gender ideologies have established an effective presence in official politics. Furthermore, this study suggests that the political structure and process provide a material basis for the development of alliances and solidarity within the women's movement.     

Psychological mindedness and abstract reasoning in late childhood and adolescence: An exploration using new instruments

This study introduces two new measures of psychological mindedness, applying them in a study of the growth of abstract thinking in children and adolescents in a developmental design. The capacity to achieve psychological understanding of the self and of others involves comprehension of the motives, attitudes, and characteristics of the self and others. Psychological mindedness toward the self (PS) and toward others (PO) may be seen as complex cognitive capacities that should show a pattern of related development in childhood. Three groups of 60 fifth, eighth, and twelfth graders completed two measures of formal operations and two instruments to assess the two components of psychological mindedness. We find that psychological mindedness and abstract thinking both increase significantly with age, although the relationship between them is complex and varies with gender and age. Because the development of abstract reasoning skills does not correlate with the development of psychological mindedness in a simple way, a more complex model is necessary, taking age and gender differences into account. Performance on the two measures of psychological mindedness is found to be largely unrelated, suggesting that these are two different psychological skills. Implications of these findings are discussed, with special reference to education, peer counseling, and psychotherapy.Received Ph.D. from University of Michigan and psychoanalytic training from The Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute. Main research interests are psychoanalytic theory, the therapeutic alliance, and insight and self-observation.Received Ph.D. from University of Michigan. Main research interests are adolescent development, peer counseling, short-term psychotherapy, and the psychology of women.Received M.A. from The University of Michigan. Main research interests are infant mental health and attachment theory.Received M.A. from The University of Michigan. Main research interests are gender identity and children of divorce.Received B.A. from The University of Michigan. Main research interests are gender issues and adolescent development.     

‘Queen of the Bristol Channel Ports’: the intersection of gender and civic identity in Cardiff,c.1880–1914

This article explores how civic identity could shape, and be shaped by, gender distinctions during the period of commercial and municipal development. It argues that women's relationship to the urban scene was more nuanced than theories of exclusion imply, gender and civic identity being mutually constitutive. Through the case study of Cardiff, the article advocates the need for deeper analysis of the way regional and national complexities permeated gendered civic sentiments. Notions of femininity in Wales had been defined in opposition to England ever since the 1847 ‘Treachery of the Blue Books’. However, Cardiff's relatively anglicised status and aspirations in the local and global urban hierarchy meant there was often a desire by civic leaders to emulate what was occurring elsewhere, or to develop their own definition of Welsh femininity. Consequently, these competing gender ideals underlined Cardiff's civic and national—Welsh and British—identity.     

Fathers and sons: A study of ego identity across two generations

This study was designed to compare the relative frequencies of the various ego identity statuses across two generations and to determine the nature of the relationship between the identity statuses of fathers and their sons. Male college students and their fathers were given Marcia 's semistructured ego identity status interview. Generational comparisons revealed that the fathers were significantly more likely than their sons to be in the foreclosure category and were significantly less likely than their sons to be in the moratorium and diffusion statuses. No relationship was found between the identity statuses of fathers and their sons. Among the fathers, high levels of education were found to be associated with identity achievement, while low levels of education were associated with identity diffusion.     

Gender differences in adolescent interpersonal identity formation

Gender differences in adolescent interpersonal identity formation were investigated in 41 male and 42 female high school juniors and seniors. Subjects were interviewed and assessed on progress toward interpersonal identity achievement in friendship and dating relationships. Differential patterns of correlation for each sex were examined for measures of vocational identity, psychological masculinity and femininity, and achievement motivation. Results indicated that young women were significantly more identity achieved than men in the friendship domain; no differences emerged in the dating domain. The processes of interpersonal and vocational identity formation appeared to be more interrelated for females than males. For both young men and women, expressive attributes of psychological femininity were positively related to interpersonal identity exploration. Different gender achievement orientations were revealed by positive correlations between several interpersonal identity ratings and mastery for males and lack of correlation between interpersonal identity and mastery for females. In addition, commitment to a conception regarding friendships was positively correlated with competitiveness for males and negatively correlated with competitiveness for females. Results are discussed in terms of Gilligan's (1982) theoretical work, which contrasts achievement of identity through separateness and autonomy with achievement of identity through connectedness and relationships.Doctoral candidate in counseling psychology, with special interest in sex roles and adult development.Received Ph.D. in child psychology from the University of Minnesota. Main interest is the influence of the family on adolescent personality development, especially identity and vocational interests.