Book Description

As Marko Dumančić writes in his introduction to Gender, Sexuality, and the Cold War, "despite the centrality of gender and sexuality in human relations, their scholarly study has played a secondary role in the history of the Cold War. . . . It is not an exaggeration to say that few were left unaffected by Cold War gender politics; even those who were in charge of producing, disseminating, and enforcing cultural norms were called on to live by the gender and sexuality models into which they breathed life." This underscores the importance of this volume, as here scholars tackle issues ranging from depictions of masculinity during the all-consuming space race, to the vibrant activism of Indian peasant women during this period, to the policing of sexuality inside the militaries of the world. Gender, Sexuality, and the Cold War brings together a diverse group of scholars whose combined research spans fifteen countries across five continents, claiming a place as the first volume to examine how issues of gender and sexuality impacted both the domestic and foreign policies of states, far beyond the borders of the United States, during the tumult of the Cold War. Table of Contents Preface Introduction: Hidden in Plain Sight: The Histories of Gender and Sexuality during the Cold War Marko Dumančić Part I: Sexuality Faceless and Stateless: French Occupation Policy toward Women and Children in Postwar Germany (1945-1949) Katherine Rossy Patriarchy and Segregation: Policing Sexuality in US-Icelandic Military Relations Valur Ingimundarson Queering Subversives in Cold War Canada Patrizia Gentile "Nonreligious Activities": Sex, Anticommunism, and Progressive Christianity in Late Cold War Brazil Benjamin A. Cowan Manning the Enemy: US Perspectives on International Birthrates during the Cold War Kathleen A. Tobin Part II: Femininities Indian Peasant Women's Activism in a Hot Cold War Elisabeth Armstrong The Medicalization of Childhood in Mexico during the Early Cold War, 1945-1960 Nichole Sanders Africa's Kitchen Debate: Ghanaian Domestic Space in the Age of the Cold War Jeffrey S. Ahlman Mobilizing Women? State Feminisms in Communist Czechoslovakia and Socialist Egypt May Hawas and Philip E. Muehlenbeck A Vietnamese Woman Directs the War Story: Duc Hoan, 1937-2003 Karen Turner Global Feminism and Cold War Paradigms: Women's International NGOs and the United Nations, 1970-1985 Karen Garner Part III: Masculinities "Men of the World" or "Uniformed Boys"? Hegemonic Masculinity and the British Army in the Era of the Korean War Grace Huxford Yuri Gagarin and Celebrity Masculinity in Soviet Culture Erica L. Fraser