Arms and the Woman: Just Warriors and Greek Feminist Identity

The image of a woman bearing arms is a potent symbol of modern Greece's nation-building conflicts. It has long been a source of fascination for its embodiment of an inherent contradiction—the fragility and passivity of the feminine and the menace and violence of the gun. 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.