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Arnberg, K., Glover, N. & Sundevall, F. (2021). På hemmafronten intet nytt: Kommersiell kvinnlighet under svensk beredskap, 1939–1945. Historisk Tidskrift, 141(3), 476-509
Open this publication in new window or tab >>På hemmafronten intet nytt: Kommersiell kvinnlighet under svensk beredskap, 1939–1945
2021 (Swedish)In: Historisk Tidskrift, ISSN 0345-469X, E-ISSN 2002-4827, Vol. 141, no 3, p. 476-509Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

The article studies commercial actors and advertisements in the Swedish weekly press in order to trace how the transformed gender roles during the Second World War were handled and negotiated in the commercial sphere. Two key dimensions of consumer society constitute the objects of study: 1) the weekly press’ and advertising industry’s actions and promotion of the role of female consumers during the war; and 2) how commercial advertisements represented female consumers. The weeklies we study, Svensk damtidning, Hemmets Veckotidning and Vecko-revyn reached national readerships and were directed towards households and especially women. The paper concludes that although women were described as essential to national defenseby keeping up home front morale, the war was largely absent in the advertisements. Instead, the latter tended to remind consumers of peacetime affluence and family-based gender ideals. This meant that while many women’s everyday lives changed dramatically as a consequence of national wartime mobilization, their desires were commercially channeled just as they had been in peacetime: toward looking after their appearance, caring for the household and choosing the right consumer goods.

Keywords
advertising, consumption, gender, popular press, Second World War, Sweden
National Category
Economic History
Research subject
Economic History
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:su:diva-197024 (URN)
Funder
Swedish Research Council, 2018-01457
Available from: 2021-09-22 Created: 2021-09-22 Last updated: 2022-05-10Bibliographically approved
Projects
Neoliberalism in the Nordics: Developing an absent theme [M19-0231:1_RJ]; Uppsala University
Organisations
Identifiers
ORCID iD: ORCID iD iconorcid.org/0000-0002-6648-4154

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