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6 - “To live to see better times”: gender, nationalism, sovereignty, equality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Matthew Evangelista
Matthew Evangelista
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
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Summary

Until now History has been made by men, exclusively. Considering what the men have made of History, we don't see why women shouldn't concern themselves with it a bit.

Frère Untel (Jean-Paul Desbiens), Montréal, 1960

In the eyes of history our men will be heroes. No one will remember us, because our goal, as women, is much more primitive and no one will write about us in the history books. Our goal is to live to see better times. And that is terribly ordinary.

Liza Ibragimova, Grozny, 2000

“How in your opinion are we to prevent war?” That question, posed to Virginia Woolf by the (male) head of a British peace organization, set in motion the deep reflection that resulted in Three Guineas. It led Woolf to consider a seemingly wide range of factors that she linked to the prospects for peace: the role of women in the economy and the professions, the prospects for women's higher education, and what stake women have in the prevailing order. Considering women's subordinate position in society, Woolf put forward the claim that they would not be inclined to support the violent defense of that society: “As a woman I have no country.” Yet she also considered the possibility that women would embrace war as a means to improve their relative standing – and she cited the example of women's suffrage and the widespread view that women had earned the right to vote because of their support for the Great War.

Type
Chapter
Information
Gender, Nationalism, and War
Conflict on the Movie Screen
 , pp. 253 - 271
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

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