Women Activists Between War and Peace: Europe, 1918-1923

Description

Women Activists between War and Peace employs a comparative approach in exploring women's political and social activism across the European continent in the years that followed the First World War. It brings together leading scholars in the field to discuss the contribution of women's movements in, and individual female activists from, Austria, Bulgaria, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Russia and the United States. The book contains an introduction that helpfully outlines key concepts and broader, European-wide issues and concerns, such as peace, democracy and the role of the national and international in constructing the new, post-war political order. It then proceeds to examine the nature of women's activism through the prism of five pivotal topics: * Suffrage and nationalism * Pacifism and internationalism * Revolution and socialism * Journalism and print media * War and the body A timeline and illustrations are also included in the book, along with a useful guide to further reading. This is a vitally important text for all students of women's history, twentieth-century Europe and the legacy of the First World War. Title Page Copyright Page Contents List of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Acknowledgements Abbreviations Time-Line: Women Activists between War and Peace, 1918–23 Introduction: Women Activists between War and Peace: Europe, 1918–23 New organizational dilemmas New ideological departures The body and advances in the science and technologies of war The role of geography Conclusion Notes Chapter 1 Suffrage and Nationalism in Comparative Perspective: Britain, Hungary, Finland and the Transnational Experience of Rosika Schwimmer The British case: The classic example of the achievement of women’s suffrage? A hollow victory: The rise of nationalism and the decline of the liberal women’s movement in Hungary in the post-war era of women’s suffrage The Finnish case: Pioneer of women’s suffrage and the politics of nationalism Rosika Schwimmer in the aftermath of suffrage and war Conclusion Notes Chapter 2 Internationalism, Pacifism, Transnationalism: Women’s Movements and the Building of a Sustainable Peace in the Post-War World Barriers to internationalism in the aftermath of war Bulgaria Germany Hungary Rosika Schwimmer in the aftermath of war Return to the international community League of Nations Limits to internationalist vision Conclusion Notes Chapter 3 Women and Socialist Revolution, 1917–23 Revolutions and women’s representation Socialist women’s international anti-war activism and attitudes to violence Communist women between vision and reality Conclusion Notes Chapter 4 Mediating the National and the International: Women, Journalism and Hungary in the Aftermath of the First World War The role of the women’s press in international feminist activism in the aftermath of the First World War The IWSA after the First World War Feminist press at the national level Feminist journals in Hungary: Interactions between local and international publications Feminist periodicals in Budapest International news in feminist journals Media representations of femininity and gender relations in post-war Hungary: Conflicts between the national and the international American women reporting from Hungary in 1919 Conclusion Notes Chapter 5 Women’s Movements, War and the Body Women and the politics of the exhumation of bodies in France and Britain Modern attacks on the bodies of women and children: The feminist response Conclusion Notes Further Reading General works and edited volumes of essays Women’s movements, suffrage and nationalism Women’s movements, internationalism and pacifism Women, socialism and revolution Women’s movements, journalism and the media Women’s movements, war and the body Index