The Weaker Sex in War: Gender and Nationalism in Civil War Virginia

Abstract

"The Weaker Sex in War" explores the relationship between middle- and planter-class white Southern women who supported the Confederacy and Confederate nationalism, and it argues that Confederate leaders used these women to advance the Southern cause. This is not to say that women were passive in this process: women were in control of their contributions to national devotion and were knowing and keen participants in shaping and circulating a gendered nationalist narrative. In this way, such conservative women inextricably tied themselves to the creation and circulation of Confederate nationalism as both actors for and symbols of the Confederate cause. These women were not concerned with expanding their individual rights as citizens, nor were they passive in political culture; they actively defined the terms of their engagement through performance of national devotion. Confederate male elites may have mobilized these women as archetypes to advance a Confederate agenda, but conservative women were complicit in this process. Seen in this way, the book contends that Confederate nationalism was more dependent on gender than has been previously argued.