Professor Margaret Poulos explores the intersections of militarism, nationalism, and feminism, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She argues that the essentially ambiguous nationalist imagery of a woman warrior has not been entirely efficient in the women's emancipation agenda. The result is "an ambitious, interesting, and successful dissertation."

The image of a woman bearing arms is a potent symbol of modern Greece's nation-building conflicts. Margaret Poulos traces the influence of this image on Greek feminist discourse from the mid-nineteenth century to the 1970s and 1980s. The study begins with the heroines of the 1821 Revolution and the extent to which Greek protofeminism capitalized on this legacy.

Poulos then explores the role of partisan women in the communist-led resistance movement during World War II and Greece's subsequent collapse into Civil War, which saw a striking and controversial increase in the number of women fighting in the ranks of the partisan army. In conclusion, Poulos examines the way in which postwar feminism engaged, ignored, or reconciled this fraught history.

Poulos's unique focus coherently connects a series of historical events otherwise separated by a hundred and fifty years at both extremes. The image of a woman-in-arms has long been a source of fascination for its embodiment of an inherent contradiction& mdash;the fragility and passivity of the feminine and the menace and violence of the gun.

Poulos probes both the myth and reality of these representations within the context of Greek history, and the specific ways in which their symbolic power has been utilized by feminists, nationalists, and others to advance at times diametrically opposed political agendas. Therefore, while demystifying highly celebrated images, she also illuminates the contributions and experiences of the marginalized, shedding important light on the historical significance of women's agency.

Read Arms and the Woman: Just Warriors and Greek Feminist Identity Online

Hardcover: 350 pages
Author: Professor Margaret Poulos
Publisher: Columbia University Press (February 4, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0231135548
ISBN-13: 978-0231135542

INTRODUCTION
This study originates in a personal fascination I had with images of Greek women warriors and the enduring national myths constructed around them. The trail I embarked upon opened up the vast and rich history of symbolism and its relationship to politics, in particular the politics of nation-building and national identity.

My initial interest was in the iconography of the Greek Revolution, otherwise known as the 1821 War of Independence, which ended four centuries of Ottoman rule. The heroic exploits of Lascarina Bouboulina, Greece's first naval commander, at sea and on land; the legendary women of Souli, who leapt to their collective deaths in order to avoid capture and dishonour by Ottoman soldiers; and the much-lauded contributions of Mado Mavroyeni to the war effort, represent some of the more renowned instances of feminine valour and 'patriotism', which were as intriguing as they were unconventional.

They were neither peaceful nor modest instances of historical agency—in spite of the prevailing social paradigm which rigidly curtailed the scope of women's activities and life choices across the social classes and which persisted well into the twentieth century—and nor were their contributions obscured from the historical record. The paradox of a nation, which celebrated such unorthodox displays of female defiance and agency, juxtaposed against the rather unimpressive fate of Greek women as a group in pre- and post-revolutionary Greece, presented an overwhelming proposition.

This paradox eventually drew my attention to the concept of the nation and of national identity as 'gendered'—a concept not only prompted by the celebration of such figures within patriarchal societies but also by the frequent use of the female allegory throughout all modern history to depict nations at key moments of definition or redefinition. ...

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Margaret Poulos is an ARC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of History at the University of Sydney. Her current research focuses on gender political aspects of the Greek student movement during the Colonel's dictatorship, and diaspora nationalism in the context of Greek-Australian political activism against the dictatorship.

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