What do you think?
Rate this book
Dismembering the Male: Men's Bodies, Britain and the Great War
That femininity was 'disrupted, constructed and reconstructed' during the Great War of 1914-18 is a subject currently preoccupying many historians, but what happened to masculinity during these same catastrophic years? Using the evidence supplied by letters, diaries and oral histories of members of the armed forces and of civilians as well as a large number of fascinating illustrations, Dismembering the Male explores the impact on the male body of the 'war to end all wars'.
Each chapter deals with a different facet of the war and masculinity in depth. Joanna Bourke concludes that those who were dismembered or disabled by the war were not viewed as passive or weak, like so many of their civilian counterparts were, but were the focus of much Governmental and public sentiment. Those suffering from disease were viewed differently, often finding themselves accused of malingering.
Dismembering the Male also examines the way in which the War affected men socially. The absence of women encouraged male intimacy, but differences of class or religion, ethnicity or even regiment acted as barriers between men, and the trauma of battle and the constant threat of death did not encourage closeness. The dead male body, which during the war became the property of the state, is also discussed.
Joanna Bourke argues convincingly that military experiences led to a greater sharing of gender identities between men of different classes and ages. Post-war debates on what constitutes masculinity were fuelled by the actions of men's movements. She concludes that, ultimately, attempts to reconstruct a new type of masculinity failed as the threat of another war, and with it the sacrifice of a new generation of men, intensified.
Each chapter deals with a different facet of the war and masculinity in depth. Joanna Bourke concludes that those who were dismembered or disabled by the war were not viewed as passive or weak, like so many of their civilian counterparts were, but were the focus of much Governmental and public sentiment. Those suffering from disease were viewed differently, often finding themselves accused of malingering.
Dismembering the Male also examines the way in which the War affected men socially. The absence of women encouraged male intimacy, but differences of class or religion, ethnicity or even regiment acted as barriers between men, and the trauma of battle and the constant threat of death did not encourage closeness. The dead male body, which during the war became the property of the state, is also discussed.
Joanna Bourke argues convincingly that military experiences led to a greater sharing of gender identities between men of different classes and ages. Post-war debates on what constitutes masculinity were fuelled by the actions of men's movements. She concludes that, ultimately, attempts to reconstruct a new type of masculinity failed as the threat of another war, and with it the sacrifice of a new generation of men, intensified.
Paperback
First published May 15, 1996
About the author
Joanna Bourke
39 books67 followersJoanna Bourke (born 1963 in New Zealand) is an historian and professor of history at Birkbeck, University of London.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
Read
November 4, 2020Disclaimer: I read this in college and don't remember it. I'm only listing it for context in case abstract-you is interested in this topic. We read it in a cluster with Paul Fussell, Margaret R. Higonnet's (ed) collection Behind the Lines: Gender and the Two World Wars, Sandra Gilbert, and Virginia Woolf (Three Guineas).
The prof told us that Bourke was positioning her argument as opposition to Fussell and Gilbert, and I *think* I remember feeling when reading it that her conclusions were not really all that different from theirs and she was trying to make it seem different (I suppose you can't really publish a book about how you agree with previous research). Gilbert and Fussell say there was a huge alteration in relationships between the sexes, and in the general social and political environment, brought about by WWI. Bourke think the change was somewhat less drastic than they argue.
Bourke and Gilbert both discuss soldiers' feeling of being "unmanned" by women usurping traditionally male occupations. Bourke is especially interesting in the reactions of maimed vets whose physical losses prompted them to regard themselves as less than complete.
The prof told us that Bourke was positioning her argument as opposition to Fussell and Gilbert, and I *think* I remember feeling when reading it that her conclusions were not really all that different from theirs and she was trying to make it seem different (I suppose you can't really publish a book about how you agree with previous research). Gilbert and Fussell say there was a huge alteration in relationships between the sexes, and in the general social and political environment, brought about by WWI. Bourke think the change was somewhat less drastic than they argue.
Bourke and Gilbert both discuss soldiers' feeling of being "unmanned" by women usurping traditionally male occupations. Bourke is especially interesting in the reactions of maimed vets whose physical losses prompted them to regard themselves as less than complete.
July 25, 2011
This is extremely good, and sits within two significant but often overlooked strands of history – histories of masculinities, and cultural histories of military experiences. Bourke complements on her work on 20th century working class cultures to show a concern with the discourses shaping and surrounding everyday experiences. She explores men's bodies in the context of WW1 as mutilated/broken, malingering/shirking, bonded, inspected, and re-membered. A key part of the case is that the experiences of wartime both profoundly changed and reinforced many forms of masculinity, that these experiences were overlaid by differences of class, region, nation, race, and many other factors. In my work as a historian I often come across the idea that sport, war, and empire were interwoven in the formulation of various masculinities – so it was useful to be reminded of the argument here that the experience of war (and the likelihood of death) placed very real constraints on mateship and men's bonding. Dense but very good, with some fabulous pictures.
October 24, 2012
Bourke's analysis is mired in a view of masculinity which constructs a binary masculine/feminine view of gender in warfare. Even though she allows for some fluidity between these two poles, this becomes immediately problematic because war has a way of dislodging those who experience it from comfortable peacetime constructions of gender, and any analysis which does not take into account a range of masculinity simply becomes an exercise in false dichotomy - one is either masculine, or not masculine (i.e. feminine). The fallacy of this approach is apparent even in the examples from the Front Bourke cites. A British soldier described “going over the top” with a childhood friend:
I looked at Herbert, I could see his lips move – I shouted but I couldn’t hear myself at all. I wanted to tell him that we would keep together so I grabbed his hand and we went over together as we had gone to Sunday school, hand in hand.
A description of British troops enjoying a moment of cathartic recreation on 8 July 1916 further underscores the point:
It was a sight worth seeing all those big grown up men who had seen death scores & scores of times all jesting and singing in the chorus’s round that fire like sand boys.
Boyhood (and childhood) - a stage of immature but developing masculinity - is a frequent frame for the way men at the Front describe their experiences with overwhelming emotion, moments of fear, and gestures of tenderness with frightened, wounded, or dying friends and comrades. These men were jarred by the violence of war out of the safe bounds of the adult masculinity into which they were socialized during peacetime. Bourke placing the experiences of these men on an artificial axis suspended between masculinity and femininity simply destroys the fidelity of their own much more sophisticated understanding of the effects of war on the psyche. It's a misdiagnosis of a very particular type of psychological wound, one which, though outside force, disrupts an individual's established understanding of himself as a mature male and elicits reactions which resemble not an opposite of masculinity, but an earlier, immature masculinity. There's a huge difference, and Bourke seems oblivious to it.
I looked at Herbert, I could see his lips move – I shouted but I couldn’t hear myself at all. I wanted to tell him that we would keep together so I grabbed his hand and we went over together as we had gone to Sunday school, hand in hand.
A description of British troops enjoying a moment of cathartic recreation on 8 July 1916 further underscores the point:
It was a sight worth seeing all those big grown up men who had seen death scores & scores of times all jesting and singing in the chorus’s round that fire like sand boys.
Boyhood (and childhood) - a stage of immature but developing masculinity - is a frequent frame for the way men at the Front describe their experiences with overwhelming emotion, moments of fear, and gestures of tenderness with frightened, wounded, or dying friends and comrades. These men were jarred by the violence of war out of the safe bounds of the adult masculinity into which they were socialized during peacetime. Bourke placing the experiences of these men on an artificial axis suspended between masculinity and femininity simply destroys the fidelity of their own much more sophisticated understanding of the effects of war on the psyche. It's a misdiagnosis of a very particular type of psychological wound, one which, though outside force, disrupts an individual's established understanding of himself as a mature male and elicits reactions which resemble not an opposite of masculinity, but an earlier, immature masculinity. There's a huge difference, and Bourke seems oblivious to it.
April 4, 2022
A beautifully tenderly written book, Bourke’s look at the male body during the First World War is a really eye opening and enlightening exploration of the way the male body became politicised during the Great War. Even the parts that didn’t necessarily follow the theme were engrossing and I found this to be a really unique look at the industrial killing of the First World War
December 8, 2022
Solid historical research. Unifying thesis is apparent but could more explicitly stated. Intervention into field of FWW studies could be improved upon as the gender binary paradigms are structure quite rigidly.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews