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7YYH0006: GENDER AND BRITISH SOCIETY, c. 1837-1945

Semester 1, Wednesdays, 4-6pm, Room Strand 2A
Module Coordinator:
Lucy Delap
Email:
lucy.delap@kcl.ac.uk
Room:
Tel:
020 7848 7042
Module description:
This module examines the making of modern masculinities and femininities
within Victorian, Edwardian and interwar Britain. The main emphasis is on the
twentieth century, set within a broader context of Victorian social change and
gender conventions. It will be argued that gender played a central role in the
massive reorganization of lives, livelihoods and social institutions in this period
of rapid social transformation. The course will critically assess the evolution of
ideas of separate spheres, and the ways in which these were contested by the
nineteenth century womens movement, as well as the suffrage and feminist
movements of the twentieth century. Well explore the social, political and
cultural history of modern Britain, with a particular focus on social movements,
womens enfranchisement, experiences of war, leisure culture, sexuality,
employment, and new masculinities. These decades, arguably, are the site of
the forging of much of the gender and sexual orthodoxies which have shaped
modern Britain.
Each seminar will be guided by one or two key questions, but students should
aim to think more broadly about the topics, and be prepared to discuss issues
that fall outside of the set questions.
Assessment
This module will be assessed by submission of a 4,000 word essay, the topic of
which is to be agreed in advance with the course tutor. Essays will be handed in
at the start of the second semester.

Seminar topics:
1 - Nineteenth century gender norms and the woman question
2 - The womens movement before suffrage
3 - Womens suffrage
4 - Impact of World War One on gender relations.
5 The feminist and gender politics of interwar Britain
6 - Work and education
7 - Home and family life
8 - Sexuality
9 Abortion and contraception
10 Early to mid twentieth century masculinity
Useful introductions and general surveys
Ina Zweininger-Bargielowska ed. Women in Twentieth Century Britain (2001)
Martin Pugh Women and the Womens Movement in Britain, 1914-1999 ( 2nd edn
2000).
Harold L. Smith The British Womens Suffrage Movement, 1866-1928 (1998)
Sue Bruley Women in Britain since 1900 (1999).
Krista Cowman Women in British Politics, c. 1689-1979 (2010)
E.Breitenbach and P. Thane eds Women and Citizenship in Britain and Ireland in the
Twentieth Century. What Difference did the Vote Make? (2010)
Lesley Hall Sex, Gender and Social Change in Britain since 1880 (2000)
Claire Langhamer Women and Leisure in Britain 1918-1960
Alison Light Forever England. Feminity, Literature and Conservatism between the
Wars.(1991)
B. Melman Women and the Popular Imagination in the Twenties: Flappers and
Nymphs.
Jane Lewis Women in England 1870-1950: Sexual Divisions and Social Change. (1984).

Weekly Schedule
1 - Nineteenth century gender norms and the woman question
Why was the woman question so high profile and contested in nineteenth
century Britain?
A history of gender in nineteenth century Britain must always start with social
class. Discuss.
In what ways did women exercise power in Victorian Britain?
Ruskin, John (u.d. [1865]) Sesames and Lilies. London: J M Dent & Co
Helsinger, E., et al. (1983) The Woman Question: Society and Literature in Britain and
America, 1837-1883. Manchester: Manchester University Press
Greg, W. R. (1862) Why are Women Redundant? National Review, 14 (April), 4335
Lucy Delap The Woman Question and the Origins of Feminism in The
Cambridge History of Nineteenth Century Political Thought, ed. Gareth Stedman
Jones and Gregory Claeys, Cambridge University Press, (2011)
Kathryn Gleadle British Women in the Nineteenth Century (2001)
Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class,
1780-1850 (1987)
Anna Clark, The Struggle for the Breeches, (1995)
Simon Morgan, A Victorian Womans Place (2007)
John Tosh, A Mans Place (1999).
A.J. Hammerton, Cruelty and Companionship: conflict in nineteenth century married
life (1992).
Claudia Nelson, Invisible men: fatherhood in Victorian periodicals 1850-1910 (1995).
Broughton and Rogers, Gender and Fatherhood in the Nineteenth Century (2007)

2 - The womens movement before suffrage

How did the Victorian womens movement seek to improve the well being of
married women?
How did women gain property rights, and what impact did it have on their
status?
What conflicts did the womens movement experience over the question of
womens education and employment?
Jane Rendal ed Equal or Different. Womens Politics 1800-1914 (1987) On women in
anti-slavery, socialist, Liberal and other movements.
B. Taylor, Eve and the New Jerusalem: socialism and feminism in the nineteenth century
(1983).
B. Caine, English feminism, 1780-1980 (1997)
Kathryn Gleadle Borderline Citizens: Women, Gender, and Political Culture in
Britain, 1815-1867 (2009)
Kathryn Gleadle, The Early Feminists: Radical unitarians and the emergence of the
women's rights movement, c1831-51 (1995)
Frank Mort, Dangerous Sexualities: Medical Moral Politics in England since 1830,
(1987) part 2
Ben Griffin, The Politics of Gender in Victorian Britain (2011)
P. Hollis, Ladies Elect: Women in Local Government (1988).
M. L. Shanley, Feminism, marriage and the law in Victorian England 1850-1895
(1989).
Ben Griffin, The Politics of Gender in Victorian Britain, (2012)
Lucy Bland Banishing the Beast. English Feminism and Sexual Morality, 1885-1914.
(1995).
Malone, Carolyn. 'Gendered discourses and the making of protective labor
legislation in England, 1830-1914'. Journal of British Studies, 37 (1998), 166-91.
Blackburn, Sheila C. '"To be poor and to be honestis the hardest struggle of all"
: sweated needlewomen and campaigns for protective legislation, 18401914'. In
Harris, Beth, 1961- (ed.), Famine and fashion : needlewomen in the nineteenth century
(2005), 243-58
Wright, Maureen, The Womens Emancipation Union and Radical-Feminist
Politics in Britain, 1891-99, Gender and History, 22, 2, (2010)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0424.2010.01596.x/full

3 - Womens Suffrage
What tactics did women suffragists adopt, and how successful were they?
What contribution did the nineteenth century womens suffrage campaign
make towards obtaining the vote?
What impact did World War One have on the suffrage struggle?
Sandra Stanley Holton Feminism and Democracy.Womens Suffrage and Reform
Politics in Britain, 1900-1918. (1986).
Suffrage Days. Stories from the Womens Suffrage Movement.
Martin Pugh The March of the Women. A Revisionist Analysis of the Campaign for
Womens Suffrage, 1866-1914. (2000).
Laura E. Nym Mayhall The Militant Suffrage Movement. Citizenship and Resistance
in Britain, 1860-1930.(2003).
June Purvis Emmeline Pankhurst (2002).
Julia Bush Women Against the Vote. Female Anti-Suffragism in Britain.(2007).
Harrison, Brian, Separate Spheres: The Opposition to Womens Suffrage (1978).
June Hannam and Karen Hunt Socialist Women: Britain, 1880s to 1920s. (2002)
M.Boussahba-Bravard ed. Suffrage Outside Suffragism. Womens Vote in Britain,
1880-1914.
Jill Liddington and Jill Norris One Hand Tied Behind Us : The Rise of the Womens
Suffrage Movement.(1978)
Pat Thane The social, political and economic status of women, 1900-1914 in Paul
Johnson ed. Twentieth Century Britain. Economic, Social and Cultural Change.1994),
94-110.
Tickner, Lisa, The Spectacle of Women: Imagery of the Suffrage Campaign, 1907-1914
(1987). Susan Kingsley Kent Sex and Suffrage in Britain, 1960-1914 (1987)
Andro Linklater An Unhusbanded life: Charlotte Despard , suffragette, socialist and Sinn
Feiner
Claire Eustance Meanings of Militancy: the ideas and practice of political
resistance in the Womens Freedom League M. Joannou and J.Purvis eds The
Womens Suffrage Movement: New Feminist Perspectives ( 1998)
Jill Liddington and Elizabeth Crawford Women do not count, neither shall they
be counted : suffrage, citizenship and the battle for the 1911 census History
Workshop Journal , 71, spring 2011.
http://hwj.oxfordjournals.org/content/71/1/98.full.pdf+html
Nicoletta F. Gullace, The Blood of our Sons: Men, Women, and the Renegotiation of
British Citizenship during the Great War (New York, 2002)

Harold L. Smith, The British Womens Suffrage Campaign, 1866-1928 (2nd edition
2007)
Lewis, Before the Vote was won: arguments for and against womens suffrage, 1864-96
(1987)

4 - Impact of World War One on Gender Relations.

In what ways have historians become skeptical as to the extent of change in
gender norms during World War One?
Was masculinity remade during or after World War One?
How central was motherhood to wartime discourses of femininity?
M.R Higonnet et al eds Behind the Lines: Gender and the Two World Wars (1987)
R.Wall and J. Winter eds. The Upheaval of War. Family, Work and Welfare in Europe,
1914-18. (1988)
B. Melman Borderlines. Genders and Identities in War and Peace, 1870-1930 (1998).
G. Braybon and P. Summerfield Out of the Cage. Womens Experiences in Two Wars
(1987) .
Angela Woolacott On HerTheir Lives Depend. Munitions Workers in the Great
War.(1994)
S.Kingsley Kent Making Peace:The Reconstruction of Gender in Interwar Britain (
1993)
Braybon, Gail, Women Workers in the First World War: The British Experience (1981)
Gould, Jenny, Womens Military Services in First World War Britain in M.
Higonnet and J. Jenson (eds.), Behind the Lines: Gender and The Two World Wars
(1987), 114-125
Grayzel, Susan R., The Outward and Visible Sign of her Patriotism: Women,
Uniforms and National Service during the First World War, Twentieth Century
British History 8 (1997), 145-164
Grayzel, Womens Identities at War: Gender, Motherhood and Politics in Britain and
France during the First World War (1999)
Lomas, Janis, Delicate Duties: Issues of Class and Respectability in Government
Policy Towards the Wives and Widows of British Soldiers in the Era of the Great
War, Womens History Review 9 (2000), 123-146
Pedersen, Susan, Gender, Welfare and Citizenship during the Great War,
American Historical Review 95 (1990),
Thom, Deborah, Womens Employment in War-Time Britain, in Richard Wall and
Jay Winter, eds., The Upheaval of War (1986).
Thom, Nice Girls and Rude Girls: Women Workers in World War I (1998)

5 - The feminist and gender politics of interwar Britain

How far had Britain progressed towards gender equality by 1939? What were
the main pressures for and against change?
What kinds of activism did women and feminists undertake in the interwar
period?
The interwar period saw the reassertion of longstanding splits in the feminist
movement. Discuss.
Primary Sources:
Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas
Virginia Woolf, A Room of Ones Own
Eleanor Rathbone, chapter in Our Freedom and Its Results
Adrian Bingham Gender, Modernity and the Popular Press in Inter-war Britain.(2004)
Sex,Private Life and the British Popular Press, 1918-1978(2009).
Cheryl Law Suffrage and Power. The Womens Movement , 1918-28.(1997).
Martin Pugh Women and the Womens Movement in Britain, 1914-99.( 2nd edition,
2000).
Harold Smith ed. British Feminism in the Twentieth Century (1990)
J. Alberti Beyond Suffrage. Feminists in War and Peace. 1914-28 (1989)
O. Banks The Politics of British Feminism,1918-70 (1993)
B. Harrison Prudent Revolutionaries. Portraits of British feminists between the Wars.
(1987)
D. Spender Theres Always been a Womens Movement this Century. (1983).
S. Kingsley Kent The Politics of Sexual Difference: World War One and the
Demise of British Feminism Journal of British Studies ,27, July 1988
Making Peace: The Reconstruction of Gender in Inter-war Britain (1993)
Pat Thane What Difference did the Vote Make? in A. Vickery ed. Women,
Privilege and Power. British Politics, 1750 to the Present. (2001)
Maggie Andrews The Acceptable Face of Feminism .The Womens Institute as a Social
Movement.(1997).
Alberti, Johanna, Beyond Suffrage: Feminists in War and Peace, 1914-28 (1989).
Beaumont, Caitriona, Citizens not Feminists: The Boundaries Negotiated between
Citizenship and Feminism by Mainstream Womens Organisations in
England, 1928-29, Womens History Review 9 (2000)

Lucy Delap, Conservative values, Anglicans and the gender order in inter-war
Britain in Brave New World: Imperial and Democratic Nation Building in Britain
Between the Wars, ed Beers and Thomas, 2011
Jones, Helen, Women in British Public Life, 1914-50: Gender, Power and Social Policy
(2000)
Sue Bruley The Women and Men of 1926. A Social and Gender History of the General
Strike and Miners Lockout in South Wales ( University of Wales Press, 2010)
Anne Logan Feminism and Criminal Justice. A Historical Perspective (2008)

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6 - Work and Education

Was there a backlash against womens education in the interwar period?
How did experiences of unemployment and recession impact men and
womens experiences in interwar labour markets?
Carol Dyhouse No Distinction of Sex? Women in British Universities, 18701939.(1995).
Dyhouse, Carol, The British Federation of University Women and the Status of
Women in Universities, 1907-1939, Womens History Review 4 (1995), 465-485
Dyhouse, Carol, Driving Ambition: Women in Pursuit of a Medical Education,
1890-1939, Womens History Review 7 (1998), 321-343
Sally Alexander Becoming a Woman (1994) Essays on 19th and 20th c womens
history.
E. Roberts Womens Work 1840-1940
A. John ed. Unequal Opportunities. Womens Employment in England 18001918(1986)
M.Vicinus Independent Women.Work and Community for Single Women, 18501920.(1985).
Carl Chinn They Worked all their Lives . Women of the Urban Poor in England, 18801939 (1988).
Gregory Anderson (ed.), The white blouse revolution: Female office workers since 1870
(Manchester University Press, 1988)
E. Gordon and E. Breitenbach The World is Ill-divided. Womens work in Scotland in
the 19th and 20th centuries. (1990)
Zimmeck, M. Strategies and stratagems for the employment of women in the
British civil service, 1919-1939, pp901-924 Historical Journal 27(4) 1984, p909.
Selina Todd Young Women, Work and Family in England, 1918-1950(2005).
Alexander, Sally, Becoming a Woman in London in the 1920s and 1930s, in David
Feldman and Gareth Stedman Jones, eds., Metropolis London (1989), 245-271 ;
also in her Becoming a Woman (1994)
Glucksmann, Miriam, Women Assemble: Women Workers and the New Industries in
Inter-War Britain (1990)
Glucksmann, Miriam A., Some Do, Some Dont (But in Fact They All Do Really);
Some Will, Some Wont; Some Have, Some Havent: Women, Men, Work,
and Washing Machines in Inter-War Britain, Gender and History 7 (1995),
275-294

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Glucksmann, Miriam, In a Class of their Own? Women Workers in the new

Industries in Hatton, Timothy J. & Roy E. Bailey, Womens Work in Census
and Survey, 1911-1931, Economic History Review 54 (2001), 87-107
Savage, Mike, Trade Unionism, Sex Segregation, and the State: Womens
Employment in New Industries in Inter-War Britain, Social History 13
(1988), 209-30
Louise Jackson Women Police . Gender, welfare and surveillance in the twentieth
Century.(2006).

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7 - Home and Family Life

Were there significant changes in British womens life experiences in the 1920s
and 30s?
Continuity rather than change how well does this sum up domesticity after
world war one?
Womens Co-operative Guild Maternity. Letters from Working Women. (1915). On
conditions of child-bearing and child-rearing
Life as We Have Known it (1931). More testaments of working class women.
Both of the above ed. by Margaret Llewellyn Davies.
M. Spring-Rice Working Class Wives (1939) Survey of the health conditions of
working class women.
C. Dyhouse Feminism and the Family in England. 1880-1939. (1989)
J. Lewis ed. Labour and Love .Womens Experience of Home and Family, 1850-1940
(1986).
E. Roberts A Womans Place. An Oral History of Working Class Women, 1890-1940
(1984).
Lucy Delap, Knowing Their Place: Domestic Service in Twentieth Century Britain,
(2011) chapter 3
Ellen Ross Love and Toil. Motherhood in Outcast London 1870-1918 (1993).
Bourke, Joanna, Home: Domestic Spaces, in her Working Class Cultures in Britain,
1890-1960 (1994), 62-97
Clapson, Mark, Working-Class Womens Experiences of Moving to New Housing
Estates in England since 1919, Twentieth-Century British History 10 (1999),
345-365
Giles, Judy, A Home of Ones Own: Women and Domesticity in England, 19181950, Womens Studies International Forum 16 (1993), 238-53
Giles, Judy, Help for Housewives: Domestic Service and the Reconstruction of
Domesticity in Britain, 1940-50, Womens History Review 10 (2001), 299-323
Giles, Judy, Women, Identity and Private Life in Britain, 1900-50 (1995)
Hughes, Ann, and Karen Hunt, A Culture Transformed? Womens Lives in
Wythenshawe in the 1930s, from Andrew Davies and Steven Fielding, eds.,
Workers Worlds: Cultures and Communities in Manchester and Salford,
1880-1939 (1992), 74-101
Lambertz, Jan, The Hidden Economy of Dockland Families: Liverpool in the
1930s, in Pat Hudson and W.R. Lee, eds., Womens Work and the Family
Economy in Historical Perspective (1990), 271-290 245.c.99.25
Willmott, Phyllis, Growing Up in a London Village: Family Life between the Wars (1979)

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Annmarie Hughes Representations and counter-representations of domestic

violence on Clydeside between the two world wars Labour History Review, August
2004, 169-183.

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8 Sexuality
Can the interwar years be described as a period of sexual revolution?
How did sexual minorities experience the first half of the twentieth century
compared to heterosexual individuals?
Hera Cook The Long Sexual Revolution. English Women, Sex and Contraception,
1800-1975 (2004).
Kate Fisher Birth control, sex and Marriage in Britain, 1918-1960. (2006).
Pat Thane and Tanya Evans Sinners? Scroungers? Saints? Unmarried Motherhood in
20th Century England (2012)
Simon Szreter & Kate Fisher Sex Before the Sexual Revolution. Intimate Life in
England 1918-1963(2010)
Lesley Hall Sex, Gender and Social Change in Britain since 1880 (2000)
Jeffrey Weeks Sex, Politics and Society. The Regulation of Sexuality since 1800 (1989)
Lucy Bland, Modern Women on Trial: Sexual Transgression in the Age of the Flapper
(2013)
Matt Houlbrook, Queer London: Perils and Pleasures in the Sexual Metropolis, 19181957 (2005).
Doan, Laura. 'Topsy-Turvydom : Gender Inversion, Sapphism, and the Great
War'. GLQ: a journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 12:4 (2006), 517-42.
Susan Grayzel, Liberating Women? Examining gender, morality and sexuality
in First World War Britain and France, in Gail Braybon (ed), Evidence, History
and the Great War (New York and Oxford, 2003)
Susan R. Grayzel, Women and the First World War (London, 2002), chapter 5
George Robb, British Culture and the First World War (London, 2002), chapter 2.
Angela Woollocott, Khaki Fever and its Control: Gender, Class, Age and
Sexual Morality on the British Home Front in the First World War, Journal of
Contemporary History 29, (1994), pp.325-47.

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9 Abortion and contraception

How did womens control over fertility change between 1890 and 1939?
To what extent did men take responsibility for contraception in pre World War
II Britain?
Film screening Ken Loachs Vera Drake - location and time to be confirmed
Brooke, Stephen, A New World for Women: Abortion Law Reform in Britain
during the 1930s, American Historical Review 106 (2001), 431-459
Stephen Brooke, Sexual Politics. Sexuality, Family Planning and the British Left
from the 1880s to Inter-war Britain, Feminist Review 24 (1986), 7-37
A Leathard The Fight for Family Planning: the Development of Family Planning
Services in Britain, 1921-74 (1980)
Barbara Brookes, Abortion in England 1900-1967 (1988).
K. Fisher, She was quite satisfied with the arrangements I made: Gender and
Birth Control in Britain, 1920-1950, Past & Present 169 (2000)
D. A. Cohen, Private Lives in Public Spaces: Marie Stopes, The Mothers Clinics
and the Practice of Contraception, History Workshop Journal 35 (1993)
http://hwj.oxfordjournals.org/content/35/1/95.full.pdf+html
K. Fisher and S. Szreter, They Prefer Withdrawal: The Choice of Birth Control
in Britain, 1918-1950, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 34 (2003)

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10 - Early to Mid Twentieth Century Masculinity

Was there a crisis in masculinity between 1890 and 1939?
Did World War I significantly reshape British masculinities?
How historically specific is fatherhood?
J.Meyer Men of War: Masculinity and the First World War in Britain (2009)
M.Roper and J.Tosh eds Manful Assertions :Masculinities in Britain since 1800 (1991).
M.Roper Between Manliness and Masculinity: the War Generation and the
Psychology of Fear in Britain, 19141950 J. of British Studies 44:2 (2005) pp. 343363.
M.Levine-Clark The politics of preference: masculinity, marital status and
unemployment relief in post First World War Britain Cultural and Social History 7:2
(2010) pp. 233-252.
F.Mort Crisis Points: Masculinities in History and Political Theory Gender and
History 6:1 (1999) pp. 124-130
Jeffrey Weeks Sex, Politics and Society. The Regulation of Sexuality since 1800.
Tim Fisher, Fatherhood and the British Fathercraft Movement, 1919-39, Gender
and History, 17:2 (2005) 441-62
J.M. Strange, Fatherhood, providing and attachment in late Victorian and
Edwardian working-class families, Historical Journal, vol 55, no 4 (2012).
Laura King, Hidden Fathers? The Significance of Fatherhood in Mid-TwentiethCentury Britain, Contemporary British History, 26, 1, pp. 25-46 (2012)