Can any feminist historians help me please?

[TheNightIsDark]

Doing an OU degree and current essay is on the ways in which the Second World War changed the lives of European women.

Can anyone recommend some books/websites etc? It's an area I'm interested in but I'm lost as to where to start quite frankly!

I would suggest the historylearningsite.co.uk as an easy place to start and will point you to basic subjects (land army etc)

twynham sociology is good too. on phone so can't link but if you Google it I'm sure it comes up near the top .

I think I'm a tutor on your course.

There is a good Penny Summerfield article online to start you off. Google 'Penny Summerfield A Historiographical Essay'. That is on women in Britain in WW2 and will give some ideas about approaching the essay.

Sorry, that should be An Historiographical...

The film 'Millions Like Us' is an interesting source for this too.

I recently graduated with a History degree and wrote my dissertation on women during the interwar years. Many of the sources I used went into the war too - I'll have a look at my reference list and see what I can find. If you are wanting primary sources (and you are able to access it) the Mass Observation archive is an invaluable source.

This doesn't constitute cheating does it?!

Thanks for the suggestions. I shall check them out tonight

Just seen there's a book of that film as well. I'm always wary in case something I use isn't a "proper" source IYSWIM.

OK - here a couple to point you in the right direction:

Zweiniger-Bargielowska, I., Women in Twentieth Century Britain (Harlow: Pearson Education Ltd, 2001)

Pugh, M., Women and the Women’s Movement in Britain 1914 – 1959 (New York: Paragon House Publishers, 1993)

Less academic, but a nice easy read and cheap on Amazon secondhand.

Holdsworth, A., Out of the Dolls House: The Story of Women in the Twentieth Century (London: BBC Books, 1988)

Not cheating OP!

Films are a proper source, I think the next chapter is on film (not that I'm behind the students or anything!).

There is a guide on how to use mass observation from the A327 website, unit 10. You can get to the mass observation archive from the OU library page, look under databases.

You will need more than British sources though, that is where it gets challenging for me. Does anyone know any good books / articles on Women in WW2 in the rest of Europe?

Just found this one:

German History
Vol. 29, No. 1, pp. 57–78

Empowerment or Endurance? War Wives’
Experiences of Independence During and After the
Second World War in Germany, 1939–1948
Hester Vaizey

That is an article in a journal, you can get the full text through the online OU library.

This one is there too, from the abstract it looks relevant:

Partisianes and Gender Politics in Vichy France. 
Schwartz, Paula

Source:
French Historical Studies. Spring89, Vol. 16 Issue 1, p126
Full text is available.

There seems to be quite a lot on American G.I.s and women in other articles. If I could time travel I'd go to a dance with the GIs.

I think I may love you! Thank you! I totally mucked up the modules I did last year (mythology and empire with pass 3s ) so I need to redeem myself with this one.

Will check out all the suggestions.

There is a brilliant but very hard-hitting book about sexual violence during the Holocaust, which obviously covers the lives of some European women. It's edited by Sonja Hedgepeth and Rochelle Saidel. It would be a tough read but I wanted to mention it because it brings in perspectives I'd not seen written about so much elsewhere.

Thanks LRD. That fits with the angle I'm going for actually.

I'm really excited about this essay and all the reading involved

Is it sexual violence against Jewish women?

Oh, good!

Good luck with the essay. It sounds really exciting.

Cross post - yes, that's the one, should've put it in my previous post. Duh!

What about Braybon and Summerfield Out of the Cage Women's experiences in two world wars. I have just read this in relation to whether world war 2 liberated British women.

Thanks Mini will add it to my list to check out

Oooh my books are here my extension request is in and I'm ready to get reading.

Thank you for all the suggestions. I'm only a few pages into one of the books but I'm at how little I knew about women during this period.