Reconstructing Patriarchy after the Great War: Women, Gender, and Postwar Reconciliation between Nations (Palgrave Macmillan Series in Transnational History)

This book, the first to study women's historical involvement in postwar reconciliation, examines how patriarchy and the international relations system operated simultaneously to ensure postwar male privilege. This book, the first to study women's historical involvement in postwar reconciliation, examines how patriarchy and the international relations system operated simultaneously to ensure postwar male privilege Reconstructing Patriarchy After The Great War Is The First Book To Study Women's Historical Involvement In Postwar Reconciliation. It Examines The International Marriages That Took Place During The Occupation Of The German Rhineland As Well As The Rhineland Horror Campaign That Implicated French African Soldiers In Sullying German Women's Honor. It Also Explores How Americans And Germans Reconciled Their Home Fronts To Peacetime By Returning Women To Traditional Female Labor While Simultaneously Honoring Them As Mothers. In The Final Analysis, Author Erika Kuhlman Reveals How Two Systems Of Power And Privilege - Patriarchy And International Relations - Operated Simultaneously To Ensure Male Dominance And The Victors' Advantage In The Postwar World.--jacket. American Doughboys And German Fräuleins : Securing Patriarchy And Privilege In The Occupied Rhineland -- Imperialism And Postwar Reconciliation : The International And Transnational Rhineland Horror Campaign -- What To Do With The Germans? : American Exceptionalism And German-american Reconciliation -- Women Activists In The Postwar World : Gender, Reconciliation, And Humanitarian Aid -- Binding Up Bitter Wounds : Gender, Nationalism, And Reconciliation On The Home Front In Germany And In The United States. Erika Kuhlman. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 221-236) And Index. "Kuhlman's transnational perspective broadens our understanding of the role of women activists in the post-war period while also providing original insights into how forces at work on the ground 'normalized' civilian life in Germany during that time. The book confirms in many ways the work of earlier scholars of the subject, while moving beyond that work to investigate the success of America in Germany and its reliance upon patriarchal norms to ensure peace. Kuhlman successfully balances the attempts made at reconciliation by some women's organizations and the ongoing perpetuation of wartime animosities by other groups. By essentially embedding women into the reconciliation process, she reveals both how they attempted to ensure that process but also, in other ways, how they perpetuated disharmony."--Maria Luddy, Professor of History, University of Warwick