Chapter 3: People in Transitions in Worlds in Transition: Ambivalence in the Transition to Womanhood During World War II

When adolescents face the transition from girlhood to womanhood or from boyhood to manhood, they are usually provided, by their societies, with acceptable and workable models of how to be a woman or how to be a man. These meanings structure the person’s evaluation of alternatives, their choice of action and identity. But when societies undergo major ruptures, such as a state of war, or rapid economic or political change, the old models may no longer serve their purpose. Adolescents must become adults, but the old rules no longer work, and ambivalence may be experienced, as conflicting models of adulthood arise. World War II was one such rupture for women and men in Europe. Women were called upon to leave home to join the workforce. Separated from their families, working in the public realm, socializing with other migrant young people, they were forced into a new situation which did not fit with the old definitions of womanhood. In this chapter, we present a case study of the transition to womanhood of one young woman living in Britain during World War II. We conceptualize alternative models of womanhood in terms of semiotic sets. We examine how ambivalence about possible womanhood emerges in this young woman’s life, and her attempts to handle this ambivalence.