The White Feather Campaign: A Struggle with Masculinity During World War I

In 1917 and 1918 Britain began to move towards conscription as it became clear that these able-bodied men would have to be forced into the armed forces. This is not an argument over whether a draft is moral but rather a sign that the age of martial masculinity was beginning to slip away. Fighting in a war was no longer an honor but was beginning to become a compulsion. While change was in the air for masculinity, this transition was far from complete and many men still unconsciously equated war and manhood. By capitalizing on these civilian men’s fears of masculine inadequacy, the White Feather Campaign was striking at the heart of a changing male gender identity.

The English propaganda effort was extremely focused on gender issues, specifically those of masculinity. Most posters questioned a man’s responsibility in one way or another. Some centered on the defense of women, while others asked what a father would answer if his children asked him “Daddy, What did you do in the Great War?vii” The most compelling gender propaganda of them all was the use of everyday Englishwomen as recruiters for the army. But the English government did not just sit by idly and wait for these women to take up the cause. Those in power, specifically in the recruitment branch, realized the influence that these women had over men. “Many correspondents point out that recruitment lectures are not the best means of reaching the workingman and that all-important recruiting agency, his sister or sweetheart.”viii The government was legally barred from using conscription within England at the beginning of the war, so they put a large amount of effort behind this propaganda campaign that urged women to take up this fight.

Propaganda posters plastered around England were aimed not only at men, but also at mothers, sisters, and lovers. One such propaganda poster depicts two women and a young child looking out a window at a departing troop of British soldiers. The caption reads “Women of Britain Say- Go!” which is a strong statement for the recruitment campaign. The caption really implies two level of meaning; one aimed at women and the other at men. The poster can be aimed at men to be saying that the women of Britain are commanding them to go to war. Yet at the same time, it portrays the idea to women that it is their duty to say go to their men. The faces of the women are not grieving, there are no tears running down their faces. Rather they look at their loved ones march away with stoic faces and a glimmer of pride in their eyes. These posters, along with other popular slogans like “Is your Best Boy in Khaki?”ix, aimed to give these women a sense of military importance.

The English government was pushing for these women to take up the standard of war recruitment for them. Women could become an alternative method to conscription; they were almost as effective in shipping young men off to war. Recruitment methods such as these were immediately labelled by the public as attacking and manipulating gender structures, but the government was willing to take this criticism. The power an Englishwoman yielded over an unenlisted man was a weapon that Britain intended to use to its fullest extent. In this way, Englishwomen themselves became a walking, talking form of war propaganda. How a demeaning or accusatory poster could make a civilian man feel was multiplied a hundredfold when an acquaintance or any young woman presented that same man with a white feather. Through the government’s effective use of propaganda and the feeling of empowerment that the White Feather Brigade gave women, English masculinity now found itself with a cruel enemy.

Attacking Masculinity with a Feather

Masculinity has always been a fragile concept, especially to the men who strive to meet what they perceive as the criteria for manhood. These Englishmen were raised in a patriarchal culture that believed, and taught, that men were the pinnacle of society. To be a weak man meant that you were below contempt, and manhood wasn’t measured by strength of arms (or at least not anymore) but rather by the way a man lived his life. Nothing was worse to a man than being accused of a lack of manhood. Being portrayed as a coward who wouldn’t fight was an accusation that made these men seem like women, and feminizing a man was a titanic insult. Englishmen were willing to fight, and to die, to defend their manhood and to prove to those around them that they lived up to that standard. The notion that masculine identity was so frail was what made the White Feather Campaign so strong. Giving a white feather to a man in civilian dress was truly a brilliant tactic because it worked on so many different levels. Not only did it make men feel shame for not enlisting, but it also made them feel like they weren’t good enough for these women. Both sexual conquest and masculine virility were essential components in allowing a young English male to be secure with his manhood.

What more does a young man want than the knowledge that women desire him and that he is able to obtain the object of his desire? It was being instilled in English women that those men who were unable to face battle and fight for their country were unsuitable husbands and fathers. Women were being encouraged to behave like Ethne in The Four Feathers and adopt the attitude that if their man wasn’t a true fighter then they should leave him. Women would refuse to be seen in public with men out of uniform, and would scorn those who did not enlist. An amorous young man’s sexual desire was a potent weapon to use against them when they wanted nothing more than a willing woman with whom to prove their manliness. In this respect, the receipt of a white feather was an even harsher blow than a woman’s refusal to appear in public with a man. It was a performance in which an attractive young woman would walk up to a man in a public place and give him a symbol that she would never want a man like him. It was a sudden, unexpected blow to a man’s perception of his own sexuality and his ability to attract a woman.

The beauty of this tactic was that the white feather came with an obvious solution to this insecurity, if the man joined the army all would be forgiven and the woman would show her affection. Mr. H. Symonds was a young boy of only seventeen when he received a white feather from an attractive English woman. Right after he had been given the feather, Symonds rushed off to the nearest recruiter and enlisted in the army (even though he was too young to serve). Symonds recounts that several days later he encountered the same woman giving a recruitment speech and that she had called Symonds onto the stage, this time in uniform. With tears streaming down her face, she took back the feather from Symonds and gave him a long kiss in returnx. This was the kind of action that would stand as an example to other men who received the white feather and even to those who hadn’t received one. The men were given a criticism in the form of a white feather and if they corrected this problem by enlisting then they were given the gift of women’s affection in return. A feeling of sexual conquest and reaffirmed masculinity could be achieved if they only enlisted.

But the White Feather Campaign did not only deprive these Englishmen of their sexual desires. The main focus of the campaign was something deeper than simple lust and sexuality. What these women, and the military men behind them, were attacking was a man’s security in his masculinity. This could be achieved through withdrawal of females’ sexuality but it was a more brutal wound when words like coward or shame were leveled at them. Regardless of the time period or the situation, the use of cowardice as a weapon against masculinity has always been present in Western society’s gender structures. Whether in battle or in the schoolyard, the term “coward” is one that carries great importance for a man’s perception of his masculinity. It is a gauntlet that is thrown down, a challenge to the insulted man to prove himself better than a coward.

The white feather was so effective because it was a physical symbol of cowardice, something that could be seen by all. When a man was given a white feather, deserving or not, he was marked as a coward and there was only one real path to completely remove this blemish on his manhood. Having a woman deliver the feather was a masterstroke, the perfect messenger. If a fellow man called a civilian a coward for not enlisting, at very least the man could defend himself using force. But no proper Englishmen would strike a woman without doing even further damage to his honor. The receipt of a feather caused civilian men to question themselves, it gave them the idea that those around them viewed them as less than men, fearful, gutless wretches. While this judgment was obviously not true, it was a time of changing masculinity and a war the likes of which had never been seen. The feather was all that was necessary to cause Englishmen to look within themselves and try to determine whether they were real men or not. This was an answer that didn’t come easily to these men, and only by joining the military could they finally be free of their doubts.

While the White Feather Campaign, or appropriately Admiral Fitzgerald, chose their targets and their methods cleverly, this doesn’t entail that the campaign went off without any problems. The women of the White Feather Brigade often encountered trouble when it came to finding truly deserving “slackers” to deliver their white feather of shame to.