HST5390 - Nice Girls, Bad Girls and Bitches: British Women and Gender from the Vote to Thatcher

What difference did the vote make? Were modern women emancipated? The press noticed 'modern girls', with office jobs, short skirts, a swimsuit, sex appeal (known as 'SA' or 'It'), keen on make-up, smoking, dancing and the flicks. But how real were her gains? This module explores the words and experiences of British women in a century of rapid social, economic and cultural transformation - when what it meant to be a 'British woman' was itself revolutionised. We will determine the constraints on women in war and peace, politics, education and paid work, marriage, motherhood and family, and celebrate rebels and non-conformists. But we will also explore women's dreams and disappointments in courtship and romance, sexual relationships and desire, domesticity and home-making, consumerism and fashion.