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

Undeserving Victims

The women of the White Feather Brigade were tasked with finding men in civilian dress walking around England and giving them the feather to force them to enlist. Their selection of targets was based entirely upon outward appearance. To English women of this time, the qualities that made up a real man were completely external. Only visible shows of masculinity would be sufficient to mollify these women enough to keep them from handing out a white feather. If a man’s dress, age, and vitality seemed to fit the civilian profile then they were a potential mark for receiving the white feather of cowardice. This kind of selection criteria was accurate in some ways because the “shirkersxi” that the women were searching for certainly would not be wearing a uniform of the English military. Yet these women seemed to forget that to wear civilian dress doesn’t necessarily mean that a man wasn’t enlisted, or that he hadn’t enlisted sometime in the past. This was the beginning of the downfall of the White Feather Campaign, when there began to be situations when these women went out to shame men who weren’t deserving of such a grave insult.

The Victoria Cross is the highest military decoration that could be awarded to a member of the English military. It is given "for most conspicuous bravery, or some daring or pre-eminent act of valour or self-sacrifice, or extreme devotion to duty in the presence of the enemy.xii" It is of such importance that this medal is usually bestowed upon the deserving soldier by the British monarch. One young English officer had been returned to London because of an act of great bravery on the Eastern Front. He was brought to Buckingham Palace where he was given the Victoria Cross by the King himself. After having received his medal, the man had returned to his hotel where he changed into civilian clothes. Later that day as he strolled through the city, a group of haughty young girls went up to him and presented him with a white feather to taunt him for his cowardice. The soldier found it extremely ironic that he was given the country’s greatest award for bravery on the same day that he was also presented with the most recognizable symbol of cowardicexiii. The man obviously did not take much offense to this action, as a group of young girls isn’t much of an ideological opponent compared to the King of England. Yet at the same time it shows how unbelievably inaccurate these white feather deliveries could be. If these women chose to regard military service and bravery as the qualities to judge a man by, then this young officer was a perfect example of a true man. But the judgment of the white feather women was so skewed that even the greatest model of military masculinity could be mistaken for a coward and a slacker.

While this solider wasn’t offended by his receipt of a white feather, there were also far more insulting and shameful instances where these symbols were given to men who didn’t deserve that kind of public battery. Many men went off to war early on but were wounded in some way during the bloody battles that took place in the trenches. If these wounds were sufficiently incapacitating then these men would be sent home to England. Some would stay during their recuperation while others were wounded severely enough that they would never be able to fight again. While these soldiers were staying in London, or other English cities, they would dress in civilian wear sometimes because they didn’t need to adhere to the military’s dress policy while on disability leave. But by wearing this kind of dress code, they looked just like normal civilian men, which left them vulnerable to receiving white feathers. When a wounded veteran received a feather it was a terrible insult. Some of these encounters managed to end happily, Bill Lawrence was a soldier who had been wounded and was riding a train across the country in civilian dress.

His wound was in the small of his back and while severe and ugly, it was easily hidden from view when he was dressedxiv. An English woman accosted him concerning his cowardice and attempted to shame him at the train station. Mr. Lawrence promptly pulled up his shirt to show the women his battle scar and told her off for being so cruel. The woman was so embarrassed by her actions that she took Mr. Lawrence back to her house where she “put a bottle of whiskey at the side of the bed, took off all her clothes, got in bed, and said do as you like you earned itxv”. Much like Mr. Symonds experience with his white feather, Mr. Lawrence’s female assailant repaid her false judgment of his manhood with sexual favors. Now even though the woman may have tried to make up for her mistake, Mr. Lawrence remarked that had he been “a nasty temper man she may have got what they call a smack in the gabxvi”. He was obviously very offended by this stranger judging the amount that he had given for his country.

Other accounts of underserved white feathers do not even end with this kind of “happy ending” but rather leave both parties emotionally wounded. One veteran, Reuben W. Farrow, had been sent back to England after he had one of his hands blown off in a battle on the Front. He was riding a tramcar in civilian dress and had both his hands (or his upper wrist) shoved into his pants pockets. A woman walked up to him and asked him very harshly why he was hiding from his duty to his country. Mr. Farrow said nothing, but calmly stood up and shoved the stump of his hand in her face. The woman was horrified and quickly apologized before fleeing the car. Mr. Farrow felt pained by this encounter as he was questioned on what he was willing to give for his country, a question that he had already given a strong answer toxvii.

This was the point at which the White Feather Campaign began to run into severe criticism. Many had questioned the morality of such a campaign from the beginning, but now that these White Feather women were beginning to accuse war veterans who had been wounded in service to their country, the public began to have far greater problems with this propaganda tactic. These occurrences only increased in frequency as the war dragged on because more and more men were being sent back to England with war wounds. These women had made the mistake of assuming that masculinity came only with a uniform while these wounded men proved that the mark of a fighting man was carried beneath the clothes, on their bodies and in their spirit. The women of the White Feather had taken up this task because they believed themselves to be patriots and valuable instruments for the war effort. But their actions against the men of England began to evoke an outcry and soon enough the women of the white feather were the ones facing the harsh glare of gender criticism.

Harsh Repercussions

The White Feather Campaign was an obvious attack on masculinity and a blatant manipulation of gender in the pursuit of national recruitment. There was no subtlety in the actions of these women, their tactics were clear for all to see. The withdrawal of sexual desire and the public shaming of a man were clear signs of a well thought out recruitment operation. The public knowledge of the gender attack behind the White Feather Campaign did not make it any less effective, but it also brought about a building of disgust and hatred towards those women who dared to participate. It was a patriotic movement but it was still an underhanded effort, one that hurt young Englishmen for the benefit of the country.

One of the reasons that this campaign was successful was that these Englishwomen were viewed as innocent, beautiful, and pure. Females were the gentler sex, which is why criticism from them caused such pain. But as Nicoletta Gullace describes it the actions of these women in harshly manipulating male identity was a “monstrous distortion of femininityxviii”. The white feather women’s innocence became tainted when they went to such the immoral lengths in the service of their country. Beautiful young faces were distorted and changed into sneers of hatred when they would stick a feather into the buttonhole of a man’s jacket. There was a loss of femininity, women were supposed to be kind and caring, the mothers of the nation. There wasn’t supposed to be this level of cruelty and spite within women. In London during the early years of the war a trio of women confronted two Englishmen, “one of the girls was a pretty wench. She dishonoured one of the young men, as she thought, by sticking a white feather in his buttonhole, and a look of contempt for a moment spoiled her pretty facexix”. This scene is a perfect example of how the white feather campaign was affecting females. It was a changing in the way that femininity was perceived. Women lost their air of purity and the people of England were disgusted at what their image of women had become.

This campaign had been started by the English military, in the form of Admiral Fitzgerald, but even diehard recruitment agents found something repulsive and disgraceful about the use of white feathers in this manner. A recruitment sergeant with the army, Coulson Kernahan, believed in the use of female recruiters but even he found the use of the white feather despicable. According to Sergeant Kernahan, “the sending or offering of white feathers, so far from witnessing to your patriotism, witnesses only to the fact that you are unpardonably ignorant, vulgar, and impertinent.”xx Especially coming directly from a recruitment officer this comment shows that, while female recruiting might be acceptable, the White Feather Brigade stepped over a moral barrier that should not have been crossed.

By definition, recruitment and propaganda may be tools that seek to play off people’s desires and fears. Yet the giving of a white feather was a manipulation that went too far. The White Feather Campaign didn’t play off of the good within men; the urge to serve their country, courage, the desire to protect their loved ones. Instead it drew upon the flaws in men, self-consciousness, fear of failure, and sexual desire. Propaganda was meant to recruit men through the bolstering of their spirits not through the crushing of their confidence. It was the wrong way to send men off to war, with a sense of shame rather than a feeling of patriotic spirit. By taking up this effort and choosing to attack men this way, the white feather women put themselves in the crosshairs of a public that was sickened by the degradation of their men. This feeling of hostility even went so far that the White Feather Brigade was blamed for the deaths of innocent Englishmen.