Henk de Smaele (Univ. of Antwerp); Cécile Vanderpelen (Univ. Libre de Bruxelles); Gita Deneckere (Ghent Univ.); Amandine Lauro (Univ. Libre de Bruxelles/FNRS); Laurence Van Ypersele (UCL); Florent Verfaille (Cegesoma/State Archives of Belgium); Kaat Wils (KU Leuven) (PDF)

Venue: Brussels
Time: 17-19 October 2018
Abstract Submission: 15 December 2017

The last few decades, the multifaceted relations between gender and the First World War have been explored in various historical studies. Historians have analysed the role of gender in the run-up to the outbreak of the war and in the war propaganda, they have depicted the gendered experience of the war by soldiers and civilians, and probed the ways in which the war challenged and blurred existing gender roles. Yet they have also described how the war in the end often seemed to reinforce gender stereotypes. Throughout this rich literature, the question of the impact of the war on gender relations often resurfaces, although most scholars seem to agree that a definitive and general answer on the ‘net result’ of the war in terms of increasing or decreasing equality, is hard to reach and probably beside the point. Read more … (PDF)