Women and War

Unearthing the rich tapestry of women's war narratives

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I recently completed a Masters in English studies with a focus on 20th century modernism, writing a dissertation focused on women’s narratives of WW1, more specifically the work of Mary Borden, a nurse in the First World War.

Through my research into Borden’s work and the modernist structure of her fictionalised nursing memoir The Forbidden Zone, I discovered the rich, diverse tapestry of women’s narratives on war.  You could say I became somewhat obsessed by both the research project and modernist women’s writing in general, hence what led me to start this newsletter.

Although I have so far concentrated on various 20th century women’s works and their connections to contemporary culture, I have a yearning to return to my area of study, and am therefore planning to extend the scope of this newsletter in the coming months to incorporate some of my ongoing research into women’s war narratives. 

The weekly newsletters exploring modernist women and their relevance to how we live now will remain, and I thank each and every reader for reading these.  It is always the aim of a writer to have their work read, and I feel privileged that I get to share my thoughts and ideas on this platform every week.

I plan to extend the newsletter to sprinkle in some of my reading and research around women’s war narratives, not just during WW1, but other conflicts and the roles women played within these.

This invigorating project is just in the early stages as yet, but because November sees the commemoration of the end of the Great War in Europe, and because of the sad news cycle regarding the current conflict in Ukraine, I wanted to share some opening thoughts and connections, as I see them.

Poppies by Monica Galentino on Unsplash

The History of Women’s War Narratives

During the war in Europe which began in July 1914 and ended on November 11th, 1918, women were instrumental in governmental propaganda.  Seen primarily in two social roles – that of the mother sending off her young sons to fight in the war and the dutiful wife and mother at home - another role opened up to women wanting to become more involved in the war effort.

Posters advertising the volunteer war nurse arose, suggesting that women’s best assets as care givers could be utilised on the front lines.  In fact, nursing was seen at the time as the only acceptable space for women within war structures to occupy, given that it played into the perceived strengths of women’s roles as caregivers.

There was also the idea of the attractive young nurse, tending to the injured men in her care, allowing for a sexualisation of nursing within the war arena.  This stereotype proliferated later war novels such as Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, in which the male protagonist becomes involved in a sexual relationship with his female nurse.

However, this picture of the homely, caring nurse, and/or the sexualised female caregiver, was not present in many of the nursing memoirs released after the end of the war.

Although many poetry collections and novels featuring combat and life on the Western Front by male authors were available, women’s narratives of war tended to fall into the nursing memoirs category in the main.  Within this, some ex-nurses chose to stick to the accepted feminine script: that of portraying the difficulties and rewards of taking care of the injured male soliders, and even the development of romantic connections with their patients.

However, some women writers of the period chose to write in a somewhat more honest, less savoury fashion, including the above mentioned Mary Borden.

Chicago-born Borden was an upper class socialite who had witnessed the chaos of the nursing effort in France and had volunteered to set up and run her own unit within la zone interdite – the area known as ‘the forbidden zone’ due to its proximity to the front line.  Borden’s unit had an incredibly low mortality rate given its proximity to the fighting, though the mutilation of the young male soldiers she witnessed in an effort to save their lives, and ultimately often send them back to the front line, is evident in her seminal work The Forbidden Zone.

Borden wrote and tried to publish her book whilst the war was still ongoing.  However, publishers refused the manuscript due in part to its explicit description of injuries sustained by the soldiers in her care, as well as concerns that it may affect morale during the ongoing conflict.  It wasn’t until a decade after the end of the war, in 1929, that Borden finally saw the book published.  It was not without criticism, with many seeing it as distasteful in its representation of mutilated male soldiers. 

Borden’s book does not follow a linear nursing account of war.  Instead, she wrote short, fictionalised fragments of incidents she recalled from her time at the hospital, many of which were the original pieces she had tried to get published at the time.  In her introduction, she specifically references these fragments as ‘true episodes that I cannot forget’,¹ alerting the reader to the fact that though these fragments appear as stories, they nevertheless portray the truth as she saw it.

What is fascinating about Borden’s book from a modernist scholar’s perspective is that she utilised many of the stylistic touches of the emerging modernist techniques, such as fragmentation, sentence structure, repetition and dream sequences.  In her private life, she was acquainted with members of the modernist literati of the period, being at one time both patron and lover to modernist artist and writer Wyndham Lewis.

Reading her text, we can see why publishers were reluctant to publish these stories whilst the war was ongoing.  Through Borden’s close proximity to the realities of the devastation of the war on male soldiers, she uses language considered by critics as ‘unfeminine’, detailing missing body parts, the unsexing and emasculation of the male, and trauma-like symptoms of both male combatants and female nurses.  Her work within this text is visceral; she is expressing her truth at the position she found herself in, without filter.

Male writers had previously held the right to portray life on the front line because of their proximity to the fighting.  Women writers like Borden struggled to publish their work because of the female right to see and bear witness to war as non-combatants.  Her work (and others I shall look at in later essays) broke down this barrier, showing that portrayals of war were more linked to proximity to the front line than gender.

Photo by Photo by Efrem Efre on Pixels

In recent months, it has been interesting to read that there have been a growing number of Ukrainian women who have been entering roles previously perceived as male.  As with many examples during wartime, roles for women often change.  Women have begun challenging long-held stereotypes within their country, taking on roles previously listed as banned for females, including taking on combat positions, as well as the more ‘acceptable’ roles of volunteering and raising funds.

What is unsurprising is that these roles are often being done alongside their expected roles as mothers and caregivers to family members, as well as keeping things at home running whilst male family members are fighting.

Though this causes an unfair burden on women and social structures, it is sadly not surprising or unexpected.  As I have seen through my research into other wars throughout history, women often pick up the roles of men during times of crises, as well as keep families and social structures together, only to find that after times of conflict their roles become diminished.

These are just some of the themes that I hope to return to in the coming months as my research and ideas on women’s narratives on conflict develop. 

1. Mary Borden, ‘Preface’, The Forbidden Zone.