As part of ‘Orange the World’, the global campaign against violence towards women and girls (25 November–10 December), Dr. Chloë Pieters will give a lecture on the role of women during the First World War. She will discuss women’s real and imagined roles in wartime, and how they were mobilised by states to support the war, materially and emotionally.
While the iconic roles of women in war are to weep and to wait, women in fact responded in a number of ways to the outbreak of war – from compliance to resistance to the wartime state’s demands for blood and treasure. The role of women was complicated by their positions as wives, widows, mothers and daughters; by their race and class; and by wartime circumstances such as occupation. While not usually endangered as combatants, women nonetheless faced numerous risks and dangers in wartime, within and outside of the domestic sphere.
The lecture invites us to rethink the traditional image of the passive, waiting woman and to see how women took control of their own lives during the war.
About dr. Chloë Pieters
Dr. Chloë Pieters is a social and cultural historian specializing in the European family during the First World War, with a focus on Belgium and Great Britain. She is currently the River Farm Foundation Early Career Teaching and Research Fellow in History at St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford, before which she was Stipendiary Lecturer in Modern British and European History at Somerville and Exeter colleges. She undertook her doctorate at University College London.
About ‘Orange the World’
Orange the World is an annual global campaign focused on ending violence against women and girls. The campaign is led by UN Women, the United Nations organization dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women. It takes place from 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, until 10 December, Human Rights Day.
The color orange is at the heart of the campaign, symbolizing a hopeful and bright future free from violence against women and girls.
In Zonnebeke, a range of activities will be organized to raise awareness of gender-based violence and promote concrete actions to help end it.
Practical
- Date: Thursday 27 November at 7 PM
- Location: Research centre, Ieperstraat 1, 8980 Zonnebeke
- Entrance: € 10/person, including a drink (cash or Payconiq)
- Free entrance for Friend, Ambassador or Corporate members of the Passchendaele Membership (upon presentation of member card 2025)