Women, the Military and Sexual Violence in the Age of the World Wars

One of the main characteristics of “total war” is the mobilization of the entire society for the war effort. With the systematic involvement of women for the purpose of waging war during both world wars, new realities concerning 1) the gendered division of labor, 2) material independency and 3) sexual autonomy were created, which facilitated changing practices and ideas and became a major cause for societal insecurities. At the same time, the vast mobilization of men for the military as well as the previously unknown mobility of soldiers, male and female army personnel and auxiliaries disrupted traditional ties within the family and the community and created spaces of anonymity and intercultural encounter for soldiers as well as civilians. Under these conditions, numerous opportunities for consensual sexual activity emerged: hetero- as well as homosexual, instrumental as well as non-instrumental, commercial as well as non-commercial. At the same time, the experience of brutality and destruction, the blurring of the distinctions between front lines and home front, and the war related social and material insecurities lowered the threshold at which sexual violence took place. Indeed, the boundaries between consensual and forced, non-violent and violent were fluid, and different forms of sexuality and violence merged. By focusing on practices, constellations and structures of sexual violence, this paper discusses the meanings and effects for women.