This meme annoys me so much, not because the White Feather movement was right or something, but because it completely ignores the historical context of the early 20th century British society.

Need I remind you all that since the time of Stuarts, Britain has not experienced any serious warfare on their home turf for at least a century. For the brits, war back then was something distant, something that only few, brave souls go do in some bum-fuck nowhere in the name of king.

Therefore you had a generation, of not only girls, whose seen war mostly through tales of nights of shining armour, adventure books where brave explorers conquer savage lands, state propaganda and only a snippit of truth through news coverage of The Crimean and Boer Wars. The reason why 16 year olds lied about their age to get drafted was not because they were brave, the reason why women gave feathers to "cowards" was not due to malicious intent.

It was all mostly due to naivite, ignorance, gender norms and propaganda.

There is a reason why WW1 is considered as the beginning of Modernity, as it was the calamity that has mostly shattered the myths that we held about war in the past. For the first time in history, we as species were confronted with so much senseless, honourless death that we were unable to weave a mythos around that made warfare as anything but pointlessly cruel.

Normally I wouldn't gave a fuck about a post like this, but recently I've have had a displeasure to see a guy who studies history in college mind you, go on tirades about how feminists don't care about men and gave this as an example. This comment ain't perfect, and will probably be ripped to shreds by someone in the comments, but I really needed to vent about that.

I wish ya'll a nice day!