Women in the British Army (PDF)

From Boadicea to Joan of Arc, through wars of occupation and resistance, to civil wars and world wars, women have been active participants in warfare at many different points in history and in many different situations. However, women's presence in the forces has consistently been viewed as problematic and in this fascinating, timely and engaging study, Lucy Noakes examines women's role in the army, and female military organizations, during the First and Second World Wars, as well as during peacetime, in the interwar era and postwar period. Providing a unique examination of women's struggle for acceptance by the British army, Noakes argues that women in uniform during the first half of the twentieth century, challenged traditional notions of gender and threatened to destabilize clear-cut notions of identity by unsettling the masculine territory of warfare. Noakes also examines the tensions that arose as the army attempted to reconcile its need for female labor with their desire to ensure that the military remained a male preserve.
Drawing on a range of archival sources, including previously unpublished letters and diaries, official documents, newspapers and magazines, Women in the British Army uncovers the gendered discourses of the army to reveal that it was a key site in the formation of male and female identities.