Colloquium: Violent Transgressions: Militant Women and Emotional Codes in Early Twentieth Century Britain and Ireland

The Center for the History of Emotions at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, led by Prof. Ute Frevert, cordially invites all interested to attend its winter semester 2018/2019 colloquium:

Sharon Crozier-De Rosa, University of Wollongong

Violent Transgressions: Militant Women and Emotional Codes in Early Twentieth Century Britain and Ireland

In 1914, at the onset of the Great War, English militant suffragists, through the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), abandoned their violent feminist campaign in favour of supporting male militarism. Through exercising militancy, British suffragettes seemed to be guilty of challenging the gendered nature of the emotional rules governing acts of violence. They were trying to affect a transformation of honour codes that declared that the violent sphere was no place for a woman. Across the Irish Sea, Irish militant feminists reacted differently. Members of the Irish Women’s Franchise League (IWFL) expressed bitter disappointment at the fact that, while they were continuing the fight, their British counterparts had halted their attack. In this paper, Crozier-de Rosa examines the relationship between feminist militancy, nationalism, and gendered emotional regimes. She asks how far early twentieth century militant women wanted to transform the gendered nature of the emotional codes governing violence.

Dr Sharon Crozier-De Rosa is a Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Wollongong, Australia. Her research is situated at the intersections between emotions, gender, violent activisms, imperialism, nationalisms, and anti-colonialisms. Her recent publications include Shame and the Anti-Feminist Backlash: Britain, Ireland and Australia, 1890-1920 (Routledge, 2018) and Remembering Women’s Activism, co-authored with Vera Mackie (Routledge, 2018).