Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

Files

File List


MORE THAN JUST A PRETTY FACE - EDT.pdf (1.22 MB)

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

More Than Just A Pretty Face: The Women of the SOE and the OSS During World War II

Keith, Kelly M
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1362774570

Abstract Details

2013, Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, History.
This work's focus is on the women who served as secret agents during World War II for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in Great Britain and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in the United States. The argument presented herein states that the existing historiography featuring female agents oversexualizes and deprives the women of their agency by suggesting that the women would have been less successful in their missions if they were less attractive. The histories discussed in this work focused on the physical appearances and sexuality of their subjects, which resulted in volumes of information that detracted from the successes of the women throughout the war. This Thesis also examines the effect that society had on constructing the ideas of femininity and masculinity that encouraged the authors to depict the women and their accomplishments as abnormal for the time or as resulting from the use of their sexuality. The Introduction informs the reader about the lives of women in Great Britain and the United States prior to WWII, their entry into the workforce, the creation of the SOE and the OSS, each agency's selection process for potential agents, the training they received, and the historiographical issues that are found throughout the literature. By comparing the two nations and their treatment of women in the workforce, and more specifically in the secret spy organizations, this researcher found distinct differences in the ways women were discriminated against within the agencies based on how the societies in each nation viewed women in the workforce. Chapters Two and Three serve to retell the histories of nine female agents who worked for the SOE and the OSS during the war. Both chapters exclude reference to the beauty and sexuality of the women in order to focus on the missions and the accomplishments of the agents presented in other histories. Chapter Four details the policy changes that have occurred since World War I, policies adopted before and during WWII, and the subsequent laws that have passed regarding women in the military. This chapter also argues that it was due to the female agents of the SOE and OSS that the governments in both nations allowed women more freedoms and the option to join the armed forces with full military status after WWII. The final chapter develops the argument that the women in the existing historiography are oversexualized and their agency is diminished because the authors, as well as society in the 1940s, was socially constructed to view certain occupations as masculine or feminine. Thus, the authors wrote their histories within a gendered paradigm that has not been altered much since the first monograph about the women agents was published over thirty years ago. I suggest that, at least on some level, the authors had a responsibility to their audiences to give accurate and non-gendered histories of the female agents. It is my intention to offer another, less gender specific, approach to the historiography, one that focused on the accomplishments of the agents and not on their beauty or sexual partners. My intention is to draw attention to the flawed and biased approach taken by many of the authors, whether it was intentional or subconscious on their part.
Beth Griech-Polelle, PhD. (Advisor)
Michael Brooks, PhD. (Committee Member)
111 p.
American History; Armed Forces; Comparative; European History; Gender; Gender Studies; History; Military History; Modern History; Public Policy; Womens Studies
Women; WWII; SOE; OSS; Gender Paradigm; Secret Agents; Over-sexualization

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Keith, K. M. (2013). More Than Just A Pretty Face: The Women of the SOE and the OSS During World War II [Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1362774570

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Keith, Kelly. More Than Just A Pretty Face: The Women of the SOE and the OSS During World War II . 2013. Bowling Green State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1362774570.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Keith, Kelly. "More Than Just A Pretty Face: The Women of the SOE and the OSS During World War II ." Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1362774570

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

bgsu1362774570
15,542
© 2013, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Bowling Green State University and OhioLINK.
Release 3.2.12