‘Gloried in her grotesque and spurious manhood’: constructing the uniformed woman of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, 1907–1920

Abstract

In the early twentieth century, attitudes towards the uniformed woman were complex and shifting. While wearers enjoyed the status that uniform conferred, they were frequently perceived as subverting conventional gender norms. Uniformed women were often criticised in the press for being mannish and relinquishing femininity and yet the socially elite women of the FANY were widely celebrated. In its exploration of gender non-conformity, this article reveals how uniform destabilised identity categories, highlighting the value of reading gender variance critically. By using the FANY as a case study, it examines these various constructions of the uniformed woman, considering both external perceptions as well as self-representations, utilising newspaper articles, letters, memoirs and Corps records.