파시즘과 페미니즘 사이에서 -영국파시스트연합의 여성 활동가들- = Between Fascism and Feminism: The Women Activists of the British Union of Fascists

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

While fascist movements on the continent achieved state power in Germany and Italy, British fascism never acquired such a position and its movement failed to get any parliamentary seats in the national elections. British fascists never enjoyed the same status that their fascist colleagues in other European countries had. It is true that the influence of British fascism in the political arena was of relatively limited. However the failure of British fascism`s gaining power does not mean that they had no effect on British politics at all. Recent studies reveals that fascism was immanent in British political culture and there was rich soil for fascism in Britain to develop also. In this article I examined the women activists of the British Union of Fascists and raised the questions of `how did women agency operate in British fascism?` and `how did they succeed in empowerment in fascist gender politics?` This article analysed particularly the relationship between feminism and fascism. How did the picture of women`s movement change after the 1918`s women suffrage and influence fascism? How did the fascist women correspond to this transformed feminist agenda after 1918? I investigated firstly, the legacy of suffragette movement, secondly, the conflicting politics of separate spheres based on the notion of gender differences in the Women`s Section of the British Union of Fascists, and thirdly the fascist women`s empowerment by new feminism. The swinging identity of women activists in the British Union of Fascists was a realistic choice for empowering women agency, although it was a `double-edged knife` which denounced women`s egalitarian demands. The women activists in the British Union of Fascists adopted and reiterated the discourses of maternalist feminism and as a result absorbed the desire of the women masses into the movement. The welfare services requested by maternalist feminism such as maternal and child welfare centers, pre-nuptial clinics, and family endowment were gradually realized through a series of legislations. Because fascism failed to gain power, there was no space for fascism to implement their own women policy. The process by which the welfare services developed not only shows the flexibility of mass democracy in Britain, but also suggests that British women fascists` negotiation between fascism and feminism.