"Neuter-ality?” The gendered debate over Neutral Ireland’s place in the Second World War

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Abstract

At the very end of the Second World War, the Irish Times newspaper made a rather curious statement. It critiqued the Irish state’s policy of neutrality as amounting to a ‘policy of national emasculation.’ What is particularly notable about this statement is its gendered character. Clair Willis, in her seminal cultural history of neutral Ireland in the Second War suggests that the paper saw the Irish state’s foreign policy as a form of ‘neuter-ality,’: that is to say, something that went against the ‘correct’ gendered order.

That the Irish Times might see neutrality in distinctly gendered terms is unsurprising. In the words of Stefan Dudnik and Karen Hagemann and John Tosh, war has long been seen as a ‘natural homeland’ of masculinity. Since the history of masculinities emerged as distinct sub-discipline in the 1990s, the relationship between war and masculinity has attracted significant attention over the past three decades. The Second World War is no exception to this rule, as research by Martin Francis, Lindsey Robb and Sonya Rose has shown. Yet, while the experience of belligerent states has, perhaps unsurprisingly, tended to predominate, Christof Dejung’s work on Switzerland demonstrates that masculinity could be easily reconciled with a policy of neutrality.
Original languageEnglish
Number of pages7
Publication statusPublished - 7 Jun 2023
EventAmerican Conference of Irish Studies- National Conference 2023: Annual Meeting - San Jose State University, San Jose, United States
Duration: 7 Jun 202310 Jun 2023
https://acisweb.org/conferences/acis-national-conference-2023/

Conference

ConferenceAmerican Conference of Irish Studies- National Conference 2023
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CitySan Jose
Period7/06/2310/06/23
Internet address

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