Shino Sugimura, “Cover Girls or Efficient Working Women?: Women in Uniform during WWII Represented in British Popular Magazines”
This paper is focused on how British women in uniform were represented in magazines during WWII. Even in Britain where womanpower was widely mobilized during WWI [Hiroko, do you mean ‘WWII’?], the gaze of the popular media on the women of the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), the Women’s Royal Naval Service (Wrens), and other organizations was problematic. While the media did encourage servicewomen, they also sometimes cast doubt and scorn on the women who overstepped the boundaries of the traditional feminine sphere. Articles and pictures from Picture Post, one of the most influential photographic journals, Girl’s Own Paper, a popular schoolgirls’ magazine, and Woman, a fashion weekly mainly for working women will be examined. After the Battle of Britain (July 1940-1941) broke out, the National Service (No. 2) Act was put into operation, which made it possible to conscript women aged 19-30 who were single, widowed, or married without children into war work. All of these magazines propagated the government’s policy, showing how efficiently the women in uniform devoted themselves to the nation. By examining the readership during different phases of the war, the way in which the magazines represented the transgression of women in uniform and the idea of femininity are discussed.
