Description
Book SynopsisDrawing on popular media and medical works as well as archival records and oral histories, this book examines how notions of femininity and womanhood were reshaped in Denmark, a small, largely agrarian country that remained neutral during the war. It explores changes in the female body and personality and the redefinition of female respectability.
Trade Review"In this short, clearly written book, Birgitte Soland examines how Danish women who came of age in the 1920s reshaped their female identities and gender relations so that they might lead what they regarded as 'modern' lives... Soland has produced an excellent account of [these] new lifestyles created by young Danish women in the 1920s."--Doris H. Linder, American Historical Review
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction 3 Part I: From Victorian Ladies to Modern Girls: The Construction of a New Style in Femininity 19 Chapter l The Emergence of the Modern Look 22 Chapter 2 Fit for Modernity 46 Part II: The New Eve and the Old Adam? The Creation of Modern Gender Relations 65 Chapter 3 Good Girls and Bad Girls 69 Chapter 4 Beauties and Boyfriends, Bitches and Brutes 91 Part III: "A Great New Task ": The Modernization of Marriage and Domestic Life 113 Chapter 5 From Pragmatic Unions to Romantic Partnerships? 117 Chapter 6 "A Most Important Profession" 144 Conclusion 169 Notes 177 Select Bibliography 227 Index 247
