The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Hemingway and Women at the Front: Blowing Bridges in The Fifth Column, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and Other Works: Difference between revisions
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In her study of camp followers in the American Revolution, Holly Mayer reminds us that camp followers should be understood broadly as the men and women who “live[d] and work[ed] with the military.”{{sfn|Mayer|1996|p=1}} They traditionally formed part of the European and American military communities, supplying many of the support services (transportation, nursing, laundry, food and other supplies) that were gradually absorbed into the military itself only beginning in the eighteenth century. The increasing professionalization of the army in the nineteenth century resulted in the decline of the camp-following community in which women, especially of the lower classes, had played a significant if historically unremarked role from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries. This military change was supported by the nineteenth-century “cult of true womanhood” or “cult of domesticity,” which vigorously delineated the female and male spheres as private and public, respectively. In short, the boundary between home front and war front has always already existed in western society, and simultaneously it has been permeable to a greater or lesser extent. | In her study of camp followers in the American Revolution, Holly Mayer reminds us that camp followers should be understood broadly as the men and women who “live[d] and work[ed] with the military.”{{sfn|Mayer|1996|p=1}} They traditionally formed part of the European and American military communities, supplying many of the support services (transportation, nursing, laundry, food and other supplies) that were gradually absorbed into the military itself only beginning in the eighteenth century. The increasing professionalization of the army in the nineteenth century resulted in the decline of the camp-following community in which women, especially of the lower classes, had played a significant if historically unremarked role from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries. This military change was supported by the nineteenth-century “cult of true womanhood” or “cult of domesticity,” which vigorously delineated the female and male spheres as private and public, respectively. In short, the boundary between home front and war front has always already existed in western society, and simultaneously it has been permeable to a greater or lesser extent. | ||
Moon notes that “[camp-following] women belonged to the army, but they belonged to it in the same way they belonged to anything else—as domestic attachments.”{{sfn|Moon|1999|p=275}} Typically ordered to “accompany the baggage and stay out of the way,”{{sfn|Moon|1999|p=14}} they were regarded as outsiders, historically marginalized though they traveled with and supported the army. Mayer notes that this community was class-inflected, such that officer’s wives were “ladies” who typically visited only during winter quarters and created a social life for the officers, while lower-class women not only traveled year- {{pg|376|377}} round with their men-folk but also necessarily worked to support themselves and their families, thus rendering them suspect since some female merchants inevitably “supplement[ed] their incomes by engaging in prostitution.”{{sfn|Mayer|1996|p=7}} Prostitutes from nearby and typically urban areas also saw encamped armies as commercial opportunities. Moon notes that “the degree to which military prostitutes’ lives have been controlled or regulated by the armed forces has depended on [a variety of factors],”{{sfn|Moon|1999|p=210}} and Herbert asserts that “historically, in many instances prostitution was organized, or at the very least made available, by the military.”{{sfn|Herbert|1998|p=64}} In ''A Farewell to Arms'', Hemingway describes a relatively regulated degree of military control, Frederic observing that Gorizia has two separate “bawdy houses, one for troops and one for officers.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1969|p=5}} Rinaldi alludes to “bad administration,” complaining that “for two weeks now they haven’t changed [the girls, who have become] . . . old war comrades.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1969| | Moon notes that “[camp-following] women belonged to the army, but they belonged to it in the same way they belonged to anything else—as domestic attachments.”{{sfn|Moon|1999|p=275}} Typically ordered to “accompany the baggage and stay out of the way,”{{sfn|Moon|1999|p=14}} they were regarded as outsiders, historically marginalized though they traveled with and supported the army. Mayer notes that this community was class-inflected, such that officer’s wives were “ladies” who typically visited only during winter quarters and created a social life for the officers, while lower-class women not only traveled year- {{pg|376|377}} round with their men-folk but also necessarily worked to support themselves and their families, thus rendering them suspect since some female merchants inevitably “supplement[ed] their incomes by engaging in prostitution.”{{sfn|Mayer|1996|p=7}} Prostitutes from nearby and typically urban areas also saw encamped armies as commercial opportunities. Moon notes that “the degree to which military prostitutes’ lives have been controlled or regulated by the armed forces has depended on [a variety of factors],”{{sfn|Moon|1999|p=210}} and Herbert asserts that “historically, in many instances prostitution was organized, or at the very least made available, by the military.”{{sfn|Herbert|1998|p=64}} In ''A Farewell to Arms'', Hemingway describes a relatively regulated degree of military control, Frederic observing that Gorizia has two separate “bawdy houses, one for troops and one for officers.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1969|p=5}} Rinaldi alludes to “bad administration,” complaining that “for two weeks now they haven’t changed [the girls, who have become] . . . old war comrades.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1969|pp=64–65}} | ||
It would seem that rape victims and prostitutes represent ways in which the boundary between women and war is breached, but women in these two categories are essentially redefined as war booty and are therefore appropriated to the war front by men. In effect, the only women who belong at the war front are rape victims and prostitutes, and their place at the front is validated by men—more specifically, by male sexual activity, which reinforces the “masculinity [that is] . . . one mechanism by which men become soldiers.”{{sfn|Herbert|1998|p=6}} | It would seem that rape victims and prostitutes represent ways in which the boundary between women and war is breached, but women in these two categories are essentially redefined as war booty and are therefore appropriated to the war front by men. In effect, the only women who belong at the war front are rape victims and prostitutes, and their place at the front is validated by men—more specifically, by male sexual activity, which reinforces the “masculinity [that is] . . . one mechanism by which men become soldiers.”{{sfn|Herbert|1998|p=6}} | ||
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women under arms and in female battalions, for example, took part in the defense of Madrid in November of 1936.{{sfn|Coleman|1999|p=48}}</blockquote> | women under arms and in female battalions, for example, took part in the defense of Madrid in November of 1936.{{sfn|Coleman|1999|p=48}}</blockquote> | ||
But once the crises of the first six months or so had passed and the militias were increasingly professionalized as the Popular Front army (this so-called militarization a micro-version of the historical professionalization of armies in the nineteenth century), the Republican leadership moved quickly to discourage women from functioning at the front lines as soldiers—notably, not so much for their own comfort or safety, but that of the male soldiers: “Republican soldiers were uncomfortable with the ''miliciana''. For the most part, men expected ''milicianas'' to do kitchen and laundry duties and to act as nurses.”{{sfn|Coleman|1999|p=49}} One International Brigade soldier, for example, was “infuriated” by a women’s battalion that was fighting before the Segovia Bridge, for “women at the battle seemed to him the final degradation of the Republican side.”{{sfn|Thomas|1961|p=322 | But once the crises of the first six months or so had passed and the militias were increasingly professionalized as the Popular Front army (this so-called militarization a micro-version of the historical professionalization of armies in the nineteenth century), the Republican leadership moved quickly to discourage women from functioning at the front lines as soldiers—notably, not so much for their own comfort or safety, but that of the male soldiers: “Republican soldiers were uncomfortable with the ''miliciana''. For the most part, men expected ''milicianas'' to do kitchen and laundry duties and to act as nurses.”{{sfn|Coleman|1999|p=49}} One International Brigade soldier, for example, was “infuriated” by a women’s battalion that was fighting before the Segovia Bridge, for “women at the battle seemed to him the final degradation of the Republican side.”{{sfn|Thomas|1961|p=322}} Because such responses testified to male embarrassment and threatened the destruction of male morale, Republican officials launched a propaganda campaign whose slogan was “Men to the front / Women to the home front.”{{sfn|Coleman|1999|p=49}} | ||
The Republican propaganda effort had a harsher side as well, the ''milicianas'' soon publicly redefined as prostitutes who endangered the army by transmitting sexual diseases. Allen Guttmann notes that the contemporary British and American publics were “fascinated by the females who fought {{pg|378|379}} with the Spanish militia in the early days of the war,”{{sfn|Guttmann|1962|p=11}} and he notes the pornographic combination of sex and violence in the overheated press descriptions of the ''milicianas'' as “Red Amazons, many of them actually stripped to the waist, carrying modern rifles, and with blood in their eye,” and as “supple-hipped Carmens of the Revolution, [who] for want of roses, toss bombs as they whirl.”{{sfn|Guttmann|1962|p=11-12}} Hemingway offers a variation on this perspective in ''For Whom the Bell Tolls'': “The twenty-three-year-old mistress [of the Republican officer] was having a baby, as were nearly all the other girls who had started out as ''milicianas'' in the July of the year before.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1968|p=399}} | The Republican propaganda effort had a harsher side as well, the ''milicianas'' soon publicly redefined as prostitutes who endangered the army by transmitting sexual diseases. Allen Guttmann notes that the contemporary British and American publics were “fascinated by the females who fought {{pg|378|379}} with the Spanish militia in the early days of the war,”{{sfn|Guttmann|1962|p=11}} and he notes the pornographic combination of sex and violence in the overheated press descriptions of the ''milicianas'' as “Red Amazons, many of them actually stripped to the waist, carrying modern rifles, and with blood in their eye,” and as “supple-hipped Carmens of the Revolution, [who] for want of roses, toss bombs as they whirl.”{{sfn|Guttmann|1962|p=11-12}} Hemingway offers a variation on this perspective in ''For Whom the Bell Tolls'': “The twenty-three-year-old mistress [of the Republican officer] was having a baby, as were nearly all the other girls who had started out as ''milicianas'' in the July of the year before.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1968|p=399}} | ||