The years following the end of World War Two were hectic and led to the fall of great Empires. During this time countries like England had to deal with revolutions in colonies and the people moving back to England from these places. During this time of decolonization England had a change in the way women are perceived to work. These changes were mostly seen in movies which also caused a change in perception of the colonial people in England. This perception would eventually lead to the fall of England as a unified Nation- State and into individual nations inside a state.
The English did not want to give into decolonization as early as they were forced to, this led to many revolutions in African colonies. The English attempted to have people believe in the fight for the colonies through political movies, often focused on a white family being attacked by African bandits and how the women of the house are involved (Webster, 565). This is what Wendy Webster looks at in “‘There Will Always be an England:’ Representation of Colonial Wars and Immigration,1948-1968.” The movies that are mentioned in this article show the changing role of women in the household at the time. The movies show women having firearms at their side while doing normal chores (Webster, 568). The poster below was one of the movies mentioned by Webster and shows the idea that she had about the change of womanly roles in the household.
Poster for The Planters Wife
This is very different from the representation of women on the Homefront. It shows the empowerment of women of the time that carried on since World War Two. Women would have normally been expected to just do the house work while the men defend the house. Since the home was turned into a make-shift fort in these movies the women had to be able to defend too. The women would even kill some bandits in the movies, only to fall into a mans arms from shock afterwards (Webster, 568-69) . This falling into a mans hands takes away from the message slightly but is still empowering to the women of England. This swooning into the arms of men was also to take away the idea that British military power is becoming more feminine.
In “‘Dark Strangers’ in Our Midst: Discourses of Race and Nation in Britain, 1947-1963”, Chris Waters discusses the change of race relations following the end of World War Two and through decolonization. The main argument that Waters puts forth is that the people start asking what it means to be British and also the discussion of the colonials as “dark strangers” comes up (Waters, 209). This leads to psychologists and sociologists to start looking at why the people from the colonies are being perceived as these strangers. They find that the common British person thinks of the “dark stranger” lifestyle as dirty and too different. This led to a differing opinion of what it meant to British at the same.
To be British is the understanding one has about themselves as being apart of a collective (Waters, 213). The discrimination towards the people from the colonies as being strangers leads them to believe they are no longer apart of the British collective. This is later discovered in the way the race riots saw people stop identifying as someone who has moved there from another place and as a person of other nations (Waters, 236). This is when the understanding of a singular nation in Britain falls apart and the State becomes divided. It is no longer the Nation-State that it wanted to be due to its division among its people on who is British. This was a problem that other decolonizing states would have had due to the influx of people that haven’t lived in the State as long as the native people.
I think that your definition of Britishness as being part of a collective is extremely interesting. I believe it is interesting because of how flexible this definition is. Does this not mean that whatever is defined as British can change according to who they wish to exclude?
I found your discussion of British identity and its relationship to labor to be quite interesting. I particularly liked how you touched on the role of women in British society because this isn’t something I had previously considered. Furthermore, I would have to agree that the British do occupy a unique space in this discourse on labour because of their imperialist nature before WWII and major shifts toward post-colonialism in the years after. This gets to the core of issue in how we define people as being part of an empire or nation and any subsequent responsibility that falls on their shoulders in the realm of labor and maintaining the economy.