Canadian Gender History
May. 5th, 2020 04:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
violsvaI actually read this last December and wrote it up then, and then stuff happened, but I suspect many of you may enjoy a distraction.
Gendered Pasts: Historical Essays in Femininity and Masculinity in Canada, edited by Kathryn McPherson, Cecilia Morgan, and Nancy M. Forestell.
'When Bad Men Conspire, Good Men Must Unite!': Gender and Political Discourse in Upper Canada, 1820s-1830s, by Cecilia Morgan
This is an analysis of the rhetorics of masculinity used by both reformers and conservatives before and during the rebellions of the late 1830s, primarily in newspapers. This was (almost) an entirely male realm and "the people" who the reformers referred to were exclusively white property-owning British men; but gender was still a fundamental source of metaphor and ideas of manliness were still used to valorize one side and cast down the other. Conservatives occasionally outright caricatured their opponents as overemotional women. Mackenzie's reformers, with their focus on "independence" and distrust of government spending, sound a lot like the modern American right wing. The exception to the entirely male realm was of course Queen Victoria, and there were some rather unpleasant gendered insults of her.
The 1837 and 1838 rebellions are a hugely studied episode in Canadian history, despite not actually resulting in anything much (that's my uninformed opinion and not the author's). You probably haven't heard of them, or have forgotten about them, and that's entirely reasonable.
The Homeless, the Whore, the Drunkard, and the Disorderly: Contours of Female Vagrancy in the Montreal Courts, 1810-1842, by Mary Anne Poutanen
This is a study of all the cases of women brought up on charges of vagrancy, disorderly conduct, and prostitution in Montreal, which were used to cover a wide variety of activities (see the title). This was early in the development of the modern police force and strongly regulated public spaces, and that regulation contributed to the increasing exclusion of women from the public sphere. Most of the women charged were non-Francophone. (In Montreal overall, Anglophones were the majority after 1832.) As now, the criminal justice system was occasionally used as a substitute for the welfare system - imprisonment was preferable to living on the street in January. Over the period studied, the number of women charged with vagrancy increased, but the length of sentences decreased. This did not just affect prostitutes (in so far as "prostitutes" were even a separate group from other underclass women), and the effect was to regulate not only women's sexual behaviour but their use of public streets entirely, which was a major part of working class life.
No Double Standard?: Leisure, Sex, and Sin in Upper Canadian Church Discipline Records, 1800-1860, by Lynne Marks
This essay focuses on devout Presbyterian and Baptist communities, making up about 25% of the population of Upper Canada (modern southern Ontario). In both churches power was primarily held by men. Churches attempted to regulate parishoners' behaviour in business and leisure activities as well as sexually. Churches "censur[ed] and often excommunicat[ed] men [and only men] for fraud, theft, debt, and other business irregularities." (page 52) Some churches censured both men and women for dancing, attending the theatre, going to parties, and gambling, but most didn't bother regulating leisure activities to that extent. Drinking was the most common sin called to account, and while nearly 90% of the people charged with it were men there was no specifically gendered horror when women did it.
Sexually the churches attempted to censure all behaviour outside of monogamous heterosexual marriage (including "antenuptial fornication," sex the couple had had with each other before their marriage), which meant they held men to a standard much higher than that of the secular community. Women were still more frequently charged, but punishments were equal. "Unlike the secular courts, women's past sexual behaviour or character never appears to have provided an excuse that allowed men to escape censure." (page 56) However, churches did not differentiate between rape and fornication, and punished both parties in either case, if they could find them. Men were much more likely than women to simply refuse to appear before the church to face the charges, which meant forfeiting church membership. In general, not just sexually, men were more likely to defy church discipline. After 1850 this kind of (official) church regulation of private lives declined drastically, but church members began attempting to impose such standards on the wider society, e.g. in the temperance movement.
'It Was Only a Matter of Passion': Masculinity and Sexual Danger, by Karen Dubinsky and Adam Givertz
This analyses sexual crimes in Ontario between 1880 and 1929, and one case of murder in British Columbia in 1914, and compares reactions to white men, Asian men, and men of different classes as the perpetrators. 49% of defendants brought to trial were found not guilty. The behaviour of the victim was scrutinized to such an extent that it occluded much information about the perpetrators. I'm not going to list the types of defences used in these cases because I'm sure you can guess at most of them. However, in certain cases, especially in assaults of children and assaults by working-class men, the perpetrators were dehumanized into "fiends in human form."
This kind of feels like two essays yoked together; the second half is an analysis of public reactions to Chinese immigrants and particularly to the manslaughter of Clara Millard by her "houseboy" Jack Kong. But as well as detailing the ways Kong was feminized and exoticized by the press because of both his race and his occupation, it also investigates public disapproval of Chinese-owned businesses employing white women, and the calls for segregated schools. There is a lot going on in fifteen pages.
Gender and Work in Lekwammen Families, 1843-1970, by John Lutz
The Lekwammen lived in the territory now occupied by downtown Victoria; in 1911 they sold their reserve and relocated to a new one in the suburbs. The Indian Act required that the money from the sale be held in trust for them by the Department of Indian Affairs, but the Lekwammen, possibly uniquely at the time, insisted that it be paid to them directly (specifically to the mostly but not exclusively male heads of households).
In general, of course, being colonized sucked for everyone, but for the Lekwammen it, especially the British ban on slavery, may have increased non-elite women's social power relative to the period immediately before the founding of Fort Victoria. This long-term economic analysis of one specific Native society allows for consideration of the effects of interactions with a variety of institutions and neighbouring peoples and the changing power dynamics and economic structure of Lekwammen society.
'To Take an Orphan': Gender and Family Roles Following the 1917 Halifax Explosion by Suzanne Morton
Morton analyses the nearly 400 surviving letters written by people across North America inquiring about the possibility of adopting children orphaned by the Halifax Explosion. None of the writers actually ended up adopting any children; most Halifax orphans were claimed by relatives and there was local opposition to sending children out of the province. However, the letters provide insight into popular perceptions of gender roles within the family, and their intersections with race, class, and illegitimacy. Writers explained what made their homes suitable for children, with the primary focus being on women's ability as mothers. They were also extremely blunt in what they wanted in a potential child. The majority requested girls, which may seem odd in a patriarchal society, but Morton points out that adopted sons were less valuable for patrilineal descent and girls were expected to perform valuable emotional and domestic labour. Also, several very popular books about idealized female orphans had been published in the previous two decades.
The Halifax explosion orphans, unlike children at orphanages, had definitely been orphaned by bad luck and not by any fault of their parents: they were not seen as probably illegitimate, or carrying hereditary diseases or criminal tendencies. Nearly all the writers asked for a child from a "respectable" family, and some specifically wrote that they were afraid of adopting children from orphanages because of their unknown backgrounds, or had adopted them and then sent them back as unsatisfactory. Also, the writers generally assumed that the population of Halifax was white, though many were specific about what ethnicity they wanted as well. However, one "letter from Chattanooga, Tennessee asked specifically about 'negro girls. I presumed there are negro children in Halifax, but, I have no idea how many and I wanted to help them, as they'd apt to be the last ones to be permanently provided for.'" (page 262 n. 33)
'A Fit and Proper Person': The Moral Regulation of Single Mothers in Ontario, 1920-1940 by Margaret Hillyard Little
The Ontario Mothers' Allowance was established in 1920 to support single mothers and their children. Originally it was only provided to widows, but it was expanded to women who had been deserted by their husbands and to the families of disabled men. However, the terms of the allowance were that recipients' morals, finances, housekeeping, social lives, and backgrounds could be intensely scrutinized, and the allowance could be withdrawn at any time at the discretion of the social worker. Mothers of illegitimate children were never granted an allowance. Disabled men who were capable of any kind of work at all, whether or not such work could be found in their communities, were turned down. Women were turned down for untidiness, socializing with men outside the home, having male boarders, being immigrants, refusing to give investigators all of their personal information, or having the wrong "attitude" - that is, acting like they needed the money. If a woman was not considered capable of managing her own finances the allowance might be paid to someone else in trust for her. Neighbours, if they knew a woman was on OMA, wrote in to complain about her behaviour not meeting their standards. Women receiving it were allowed to work, but only in certain kinds of part time jobs which allowed them time for childcare. Investigators made a point of showing up unannounced, in the evenings, to see if a woman was entertaining male visitors. This meant, of course, that welfare recipients (especially those who were not Anglo-Celtic Canadians) were held to extremely high standards. It also meant that if a woman attempted to improve her financial situation, either by full time work or by attempting to court a new husband, she could lose her allowance before she had any replacement for it.
The Miner's Wife: Working-Class Femininity in a Masculine Context, 1920-1950 by Nancy M. Forestell
The essay, focusing on Timmins, Ontario, starts with a sketch of early mining society when most miners were bachelors, and then settles into a discussion of the role of a wife in the family-centred society (Hollinger Consolidated Mining Company began to preferentially hire married men) that followed. It was illegal to employ women in the mining industry for anything but clerical work, so even though many of these women wanted or needed to supplement their husband's income their options were limited, and in general there was widespread prejudice against married women working. Furthermore their schedules were set by their husbands' changing shifts. (Those who also had lodgers on a different shift schedule had it even worse.) If their husbands were injured, either temporarily or permanently, women were expected to nurse them, and unlike other forms of domestic labour there was no acceptable space provided to complain about this (and this book was published in the late '90s, so it hadn't come up much in earlier feminist work then either). However, women usually did all the money management, and miners were expected to turn over their cheques immediately. If a husband couldn't be trusted to bring his cheque home, his wife might go to meet him after work on payday to get it from him, and also to publicly shame him. This meant, though, that men did not have to do any of the labour of budgeting and shopping, and financial difficulties could be blamed on a wife being a "poor manager" rather than on inadequate wages or the system in general. The cost of living in Timmins at this time was significantly higher than in Toronto, and they also had a much higher rate of debt.
Sex Fiends or Swish Kids?: Gay Men in Hush Free Press, 1946-1956 by Eric Setliff
While in general in the 1950s there were widespread media portrayals of gay men as either potential Communist traitors or child molesters, the tabloid press still provided a space where, while they were certainly mocked, gay men appeared harmless and were defined by femininity rather than predation. This was primarily in the gossip columns, but also in reports of recent court cases. Gay men were feminized to the point of gender confusion and dehumanization - there was no differentiation between gay men and trans women such as Christine Jorgensen. Celebrities such as Liberace and Johnny Ray were especially criticized (and women were criticized for being their fans). However, the gossip columns named specific bars where gay men hung out, and emphasized their communities and social lives. Though the Hush Free Press mocked gay men, they also published letters from readers quoting Kinsey and defending homosexuality as natural. The paper's law-and-order stance (they called for the mass arrest of vagrants, though not of homosexuals) meant that they were in fact very sympathetic to victims of hate crimes and called for harsh sentences against the perpetrators. Respectable newspapers did not talk about gay community at all, positively or negatively, and therefore gay men only came up in their pages in the context of political or sex crimes, whereas a determined reader in a major city could use Hush as a source to find his local gay bars.
'The Case of the Kissing Nurse': Femininity, Sexuality, and Canadian Nursing, 1900-1970 by Kathryn McPherson
Apprentice nurses working in hospitals were held to extremely strict standards of femininity and chastity to uphold the dignity of the profession. Before WWI this was merely a more extreme version of the standards all middle class women were held to, but afterwards they began to diverge. In the 1920s nurses' uniforms remained high-waisted and long-skirted, and students were punished for bobbing their hair. In their later careers women usually kept to these standards while working, and relied upon the uniform to maintain boundaries and protect them from sexually dangerous men, for example when walking home alone. During WWII, nursing uniforms became more in line with general fashion, and the profession began to promote an image of exaggerated femininity. After working hours, women were encouraged to socialize and participate in heterosexual society. Regulations against drinking and smoking were relaxed. After their apprenticeships, nurses were now primarily employed in hospitals, rather than private care which required them to make house calls, so they were protected from much harassment (I wonder how much car culture also contributed to this). However, at this point the wider culture also discovered nurses' sexuality. The regulations of nursing schools and their students' publications provide a specific example of how a gender identity was deliberately constructed and learned, in an almost entirely female space.
Defending Honour, Demanding Respect: Manly Discourse and Gendered Practice in Two Construction Strikes, Toronto, 1960-1961, by Franca Iacovetta
Iacovetta analyses the lives of and rhetoric used by Italian immigrant construction workers in early 1960s Toronto. (Wow, Wikipedia is kind of shit at labour history, isn't it? Here's the Toronto Workers' History Project.) Regulations in the construction industry were poorly enforced and the large number of small businesses made labour organization difficult. Strikes provided an opportunity for men who felt exploited to establish their honour and masculinity. Unlike many other labour movements, women were not directly involved in the 1960 and 1961 construction strikes, but one reason they were possible is that the majority of women in the community were earning their own wages, which during the strikes were a family's sole income. Still, Italian immigrant men built their identity on their ability to provide for their families, both at home and back in Italy, and this allowed them to valourize themselves and their efforts to secure better working conditions.
(Digression: While this period does play a major role in the inclusion of Italians in the Canadian construction of Whiteness, I find it really uncomfortable when people claim without examination that the word "slave" by itself is a racial image. Yes, in North America the defining image of slavery is based on Triangle Trade chattel slavery, and in period discourse that's frequently what the writers were specifically trying to invoke, but hundreds of societies have had slaves, and several have been fundamentally based on slavery, and those slaves have been of all races, including the same one as those exploiting them. Slaves should not just be assumed to be black.)
Gendered Pasts: Historical Essays in Femininity and Masculinity in Canada, edited by Kathryn McPherson, Cecilia Morgan, and Nancy M. Forestell.
'When Bad Men Conspire, Good Men Must Unite!': Gender and Political Discourse in Upper Canada, 1820s-1830s, by Cecilia Morgan
This is an analysis of the rhetorics of masculinity used by both reformers and conservatives before and during the rebellions of the late 1830s, primarily in newspapers. This was (almost) an entirely male realm and "the people" who the reformers referred to were exclusively white property-owning British men; but gender was still a fundamental source of metaphor and ideas of manliness were still used to valorize one side and cast down the other. Conservatives occasionally outright caricatured their opponents as overemotional women. Mackenzie's reformers, with their focus on "independence" and distrust of government spending, sound a lot like the modern American right wing. The exception to the entirely male realm was of course Queen Victoria, and there were some rather unpleasant gendered insults of her.
The 1837 and 1838 rebellions are a hugely studied episode in Canadian history, despite not actually resulting in anything much (that's my uninformed opinion and not the author's). You probably haven't heard of them, or have forgotten about them, and that's entirely reasonable.
The Homeless, the Whore, the Drunkard, and the Disorderly: Contours of Female Vagrancy in the Montreal Courts, 1810-1842, by Mary Anne Poutanen
This is a study of all the cases of women brought up on charges of vagrancy, disorderly conduct, and prostitution in Montreal, which were used to cover a wide variety of activities (see the title). This was early in the development of the modern police force and strongly regulated public spaces, and that regulation contributed to the increasing exclusion of women from the public sphere. Most of the women charged were non-Francophone. (In Montreal overall, Anglophones were the majority after 1832.) As now, the criminal justice system was occasionally used as a substitute for the welfare system - imprisonment was preferable to living on the street in January. Over the period studied, the number of women charged with vagrancy increased, but the length of sentences decreased. This did not just affect prostitutes (in so far as "prostitutes" were even a separate group from other underclass women), and the effect was to regulate not only women's sexual behaviour but their use of public streets entirely, which was a major part of working class life.
No Double Standard?: Leisure, Sex, and Sin in Upper Canadian Church Discipline Records, 1800-1860, by Lynne Marks
This essay focuses on devout Presbyterian and Baptist communities, making up about 25% of the population of Upper Canada (modern southern Ontario). In both churches power was primarily held by men. Churches attempted to regulate parishoners' behaviour in business and leisure activities as well as sexually. Churches "censur[ed] and often excommunicat[ed] men [and only men] for fraud, theft, debt, and other business irregularities." (page 52) Some churches censured both men and women for dancing, attending the theatre, going to parties, and gambling, but most didn't bother regulating leisure activities to that extent. Drinking was the most common sin called to account, and while nearly 90% of the people charged with it were men there was no specifically gendered horror when women did it.
Sexually the churches attempted to censure all behaviour outside of monogamous heterosexual marriage (including "antenuptial fornication," sex the couple had had with each other before their marriage), which meant they held men to a standard much higher than that of the secular community. Women were still more frequently charged, but punishments were equal. "Unlike the secular courts, women's past sexual behaviour or character never appears to have provided an excuse that allowed men to escape censure." (page 56) However, churches did not differentiate between rape and fornication, and punished both parties in either case, if they could find them. Men were much more likely than women to simply refuse to appear before the church to face the charges, which meant forfeiting church membership. In general, not just sexually, men were more likely to defy church discipline. After 1850 this kind of (official) church regulation of private lives declined drastically, but church members began attempting to impose such standards on the wider society, e.g. in the temperance movement.
'It Was Only a Matter of Passion': Masculinity and Sexual Danger, by Karen Dubinsky and Adam Givertz
This analyses sexual crimes in Ontario between 1880 and 1929, and one case of murder in British Columbia in 1914, and compares reactions to white men, Asian men, and men of different classes as the perpetrators. 49% of defendants brought to trial were found not guilty. The behaviour of the victim was scrutinized to such an extent that it occluded much information about the perpetrators. I'm not going to list the types of defences used in these cases because I'm sure you can guess at most of them. However, in certain cases, especially in assaults of children and assaults by working-class men, the perpetrators were dehumanized into "fiends in human form."
This kind of feels like two essays yoked together; the second half is an analysis of public reactions to Chinese immigrants and particularly to the manslaughter of Clara Millard by her "houseboy" Jack Kong. But as well as detailing the ways Kong was feminized and exoticized by the press because of both his race and his occupation, it also investigates public disapproval of Chinese-owned businesses employing white women, and the calls for segregated schools. There is a lot going on in fifteen pages.
Gender and Work in Lekwammen Families, 1843-1970, by John Lutz
The Lekwammen lived in the territory now occupied by downtown Victoria; in 1911 they sold their reserve and relocated to a new one in the suburbs. The Indian Act required that the money from the sale be held in trust for them by the Department of Indian Affairs, but the Lekwammen, possibly uniquely at the time, insisted that it be paid to them directly (specifically to the mostly but not exclusively male heads of households).
In general, of course, being colonized sucked for everyone, but for the Lekwammen it, especially the British ban on slavery, may have increased non-elite women's social power relative to the period immediately before the founding of Fort Victoria. This long-term economic analysis of one specific Native society allows for consideration of the effects of interactions with a variety of institutions and neighbouring peoples and the changing power dynamics and economic structure of Lekwammen society.
'To Take an Orphan': Gender and Family Roles Following the 1917 Halifax Explosion by Suzanne Morton
Morton analyses the nearly 400 surviving letters written by people across North America inquiring about the possibility of adopting children orphaned by the Halifax Explosion. None of the writers actually ended up adopting any children; most Halifax orphans were claimed by relatives and there was local opposition to sending children out of the province. However, the letters provide insight into popular perceptions of gender roles within the family, and their intersections with race, class, and illegitimacy. Writers explained what made their homes suitable for children, with the primary focus being on women's ability as mothers. They were also extremely blunt in what they wanted in a potential child. The majority requested girls, which may seem odd in a patriarchal society, but Morton points out that adopted sons were less valuable for patrilineal descent and girls were expected to perform valuable emotional and domestic labour. Also, several very popular books about idealized female orphans had been published in the previous two decades.
"The frequent request that a girl would keep the woman company reminds us of the isolation of many women, especially on farms, and the real labour value of this important task. A New Brunswick widow requested a little girl for company so that she could free her two daughters to go away and teach during the winter term." (page 114)
The Halifax explosion orphans, unlike children at orphanages, had definitely been orphaned by bad luck and not by any fault of their parents: they were not seen as probably illegitimate, or carrying hereditary diseases or criminal tendencies. Nearly all the writers asked for a child from a "respectable" family, and some specifically wrote that they were afraid of adopting children from orphanages because of their unknown backgrounds, or had adopted them and then sent them back as unsatisfactory. Also, the writers generally assumed that the population of Halifax was white, though many were specific about what ethnicity they wanted as well. However, one "letter from Chattanooga, Tennessee asked specifically about 'negro girls. I presumed there are negro children in Halifax, but, I have no idea how many and I wanted to help them, as they'd apt to be the last ones to be permanently provided for.'" (page 262 n. 33)
'A Fit and Proper Person': The Moral Regulation of Single Mothers in Ontario, 1920-1940 by Margaret Hillyard Little
The Ontario Mothers' Allowance was established in 1920 to support single mothers and their children. Originally it was only provided to widows, but it was expanded to women who had been deserted by their husbands and to the families of disabled men. However, the terms of the allowance were that recipients' morals, finances, housekeeping, social lives, and backgrounds could be intensely scrutinized, and the allowance could be withdrawn at any time at the discretion of the social worker. Mothers of illegitimate children were never granted an allowance. Disabled men who were capable of any kind of work at all, whether or not such work could be found in their communities, were turned down. Women were turned down for untidiness, socializing with men outside the home, having male boarders, being immigrants, refusing to give investigators all of their personal information, or having the wrong "attitude" - that is, acting like they needed the money. If a woman was not considered capable of managing her own finances the allowance might be paid to someone else in trust for her. Neighbours, if they knew a woman was on OMA, wrote in to complain about her behaviour not meeting their standards. Women receiving it were allowed to work, but only in certain kinds of part time jobs which allowed them time for childcare. Investigators made a point of showing up unannounced, in the evenings, to see if a woman was entertaining male visitors. This meant, of course, that welfare recipients (especially those who were not Anglo-Celtic Canadians) were held to extremely high standards. It also meant that if a woman attempted to improve her financial situation, either by full time work or by attempting to court a new husband, she could lose her allowance before she had any replacement for it.
The Miner's Wife: Working-Class Femininity in a Masculine Context, 1920-1950 by Nancy M. Forestell
The essay, focusing on Timmins, Ontario, starts with a sketch of early mining society when most miners were bachelors, and then settles into a discussion of the role of a wife in the family-centred society (Hollinger Consolidated Mining Company began to preferentially hire married men) that followed. It was illegal to employ women in the mining industry for anything but clerical work, so even though many of these women wanted or needed to supplement their husband's income their options were limited, and in general there was widespread prejudice against married women working. Furthermore their schedules were set by their husbands' changing shifts. (Those who also had lodgers on a different shift schedule had it even worse.) If their husbands were injured, either temporarily or permanently, women were expected to nurse them, and unlike other forms of domestic labour there was no acceptable space provided to complain about this (and this book was published in the late '90s, so it hadn't come up much in earlier feminist work then either). However, women usually did all the money management, and miners were expected to turn over their cheques immediately. If a husband couldn't be trusted to bring his cheque home, his wife might go to meet him after work on payday to get it from him, and also to publicly shame him. This meant, though, that men did not have to do any of the labour of budgeting and shopping, and financial difficulties could be blamed on a wife being a "poor manager" rather than on inadequate wages or the system in general. The cost of living in Timmins at this time was significantly higher than in Toronto, and they also had a much higher rate of debt.
Sex Fiends or Swish Kids?: Gay Men in Hush Free Press, 1946-1956 by Eric Setliff
While in general in the 1950s there were widespread media portrayals of gay men as either potential Communist traitors or child molesters, the tabloid press still provided a space where, while they were certainly mocked, gay men appeared harmless and were defined by femininity rather than predation. This was primarily in the gossip columns, but also in reports of recent court cases. Gay men were feminized to the point of gender confusion and dehumanization - there was no differentiation between gay men and trans women such as Christine Jorgensen. Celebrities such as Liberace and Johnny Ray were especially criticized (and women were criticized for being their fans). However, the gossip columns named specific bars where gay men hung out, and emphasized their communities and social lives. Though the Hush Free Press mocked gay men, they also published letters from readers quoting Kinsey and defending homosexuality as natural. The paper's law-and-order stance (they called for the mass arrest of vagrants, though not of homosexuals) meant that they were in fact very sympathetic to victims of hate crimes and called for harsh sentences against the perpetrators. Respectable newspapers did not talk about gay community at all, positively or negatively, and therefore gay men only came up in their pages in the context of political or sex crimes, whereas a determined reader in a major city could use Hush as a source to find his local gay bars.
'The Case of the Kissing Nurse': Femininity, Sexuality, and Canadian Nursing, 1900-1970 by Kathryn McPherson
Apprentice nurses working in hospitals were held to extremely strict standards of femininity and chastity to uphold the dignity of the profession. Before WWI this was merely a more extreme version of the standards all middle class women were held to, but afterwards they began to diverge. In the 1920s nurses' uniforms remained high-waisted and long-skirted, and students were punished for bobbing their hair. In their later careers women usually kept to these standards while working, and relied upon the uniform to maintain boundaries and protect them from sexually dangerous men, for example when walking home alone. During WWII, nursing uniforms became more in line with general fashion, and the profession began to promote an image of exaggerated femininity. After working hours, women were encouraged to socialize and participate in heterosexual society. Regulations against drinking and smoking were relaxed. After their apprenticeships, nurses were now primarily employed in hospitals, rather than private care which required them to make house calls, so they were protected from much harassment (I wonder how much car culture also contributed to this). However, at this point the wider culture also discovered nurses' sexuality. The regulations of nursing schools and their students' publications provide a specific example of how a gender identity was deliberately constructed and learned, in an almost entirely female space.
Defending Honour, Demanding Respect: Manly Discourse and Gendered Practice in Two Construction Strikes, Toronto, 1960-1961, by Franca Iacovetta
Iacovetta analyses the lives of and rhetoric used by Italian immigrant construction workers in early 1960s Toronto. (Wow, Wikipedia is kind of shit at labour history, isn't it? Here's the Toronto Workers' History Project.) Regulations in the construction industry were poorly enforced and the large number of small businesses made labour organization difficult. Strikes provided an opportunity for men who felt exploited to establish their honour and masculinity. Unlike many other labour movements, women were not directly involved in the 1960 and 1961 construction strikes, but one reason they were possible is that the majority of women in the community were earning their own wages, which during the strikes were a family's sole income. Still, Italian immigrant men built their identity on their ability to provide for their families, both at home and back in Italy, and this allowed them to valourize themselves and their efforts to secure better working conditions.
(Digression: While this period does play a major role in the inclusion of Italians in the Canadian construction of Whiteness, I find it really uncomfortable when people claim without examination that the word "slave" by itself is a racial image. Yes, in North America the defining image of slavery is based on Triangle Trade chattel slavery, and in period discourse that's frequently what the writers were specifically trying to invoke, but hundreds of societies have had slaves, and several have been fundamentally based on slavery, and those slaves have been of all races, including the same one as those exploiting them. Slaves should not just be assumed to be black.)
no subject
Date: 2020-05-06 02:46 pm (UTC)