Word Count: 2168
Arielle Bortz
AP Seminar Mock IWA
3 November 2025
Frames of Illusion: How WWII Media Rewrote Women’s Realities
Following WWII, women’s roles in society were shifting dramatically. According to Elizabeth de Cacqueray, a lecturer at the University of Toulouse, women in Europe were gaining a greater voice and expanding their lives outside the home, as depicted by the British postwar films, Went the Day Well? (1942), Millions Like Us (1943), and A Canterbury Tale (1944) (1). However, not all women experienced these changes and media representations tend to glaze over the true realities of the firm grasp of the postwar patriarchy (9). This can mislead current viewers that after WWII, women generally became more free. However, this is largely inaccurate as seen with the study of Les Tondues or “the shaven ones.” According to Oxford University Press writer Mike Kelly, Les Tondues were French women accused of collaborating with Nazis during the German occupation of France. These women were shamed, including having their heads shaved in public and facing discrimination thereafter. 20,000 women were subject to these accusations and faced punishment. About 42% of these women faced discrimination for alleged intimate or romantic relationships with German soldiers. The other 58% were punished as a result of baseless accusations of Nazi collaboration. These women had no trial and the punishments were carried out by French authorities, such as the army or police. Suppressing women boosted male morale as many French men felt weakened and powerless after the Germans took advantage of France (Kelly). Postwar European films illustrating women as taking a more influential stance in society can be misleading, as women in France remained second class citizens to their male counterparts.
The proposition of distorted memory can parallel the ideas discussed in False Nostalgia, an article written by author and historian Johan Norberg. False Nostalgia highlights the idea that as time goes on, memories can become disfigured and one may view a time period as happier and more prosperous than it might have actually been. Specifically, False Nostalgia touches on how people long to return to the so-called “good old days.” For example, many people remember the 1950s as America at its prime. It is recalled by many as the epitome of family life, American pride, and postwar economic prosperity. Society often neglects to remember that in the 1950s, the poverty index was much greater than it is today; there were social tensions regarding the Civil Rights Movement; many were fearful of nuclear annihilation during the Cold War, and sexism was embedded in daily life (10-11). The way we remember things may not fully correlate to reality. Storytellers retain the power to decide what perspective to share. Wartime cinema tended to depict women as gaining a larger presence in society and showed them taking on roles outside of the home. Postwar media content misrepresented the lives of women during and after WWII, exaggerating their social advancement, leading to false memories of the postwar period being a time of greater gender equality.
Gender power relations and discrimination were reinforced after the end of WWII. While this period of liberation may typically be remembered as a time of freedom and rebuilding across Europe, this was far from the truth. Mike Kelly stated that after the liberation of France post WWII, the country was facing a severe decline in national pride. The shavings of Les Tondues were public spectacles, symbolizing patriotic renewal and national unity as authority figures in France finally felt that they were regaining their power. While many of these women were accused of having romantic relationships with German soldiers, others faced groundless allegations of denouncing others to Germans, profiting illegally during occupation and belonging to collaborationist organizations while the men were off fighting in the war. Building off of the idea of regaining national pride, Alison M. Moore, the Associate Dean of Research in the School of Humanities and Communications Arts at Western Sydney University, stated that the punishments were more about national purification and revenge than collaboration. People were motivated to purge traces of the enemy, but many women faced false accusations due to a neighbor wanting to settle a personal score. Moore hints that these punishments were symbolic rather than judicial, alluding to the fact that these women were powerless and trapped. These punishments were misogynistic as women were used as scapegoats for national shame and defeat. Therefore, by punishing the women, French authorities felt in control again, reestablishing order (681).
The injustices faced by Les Tondues are largely unknown due to lapses in media coverage. In a paper discussing the photography of Les Tondues for the journal Gender & History, Alison M. Moore argues that the photos of Les Tondues shape a myth of female sexual guilt (668). Moore states that the photos of Les Tondues are silent, concealing the women’s real circumstances by only telling one story. Moore implies that these women were victims twice: first of wartime chaos, then of a voyeuristic national purge that used their bodies to express other’s guilt (661-664). Moore claims that the photography itself was part of the violence because it extended and reproduced the humiliation. Many of the punished women had proven no guilt and left no testimony—only their images survived. Moore refers to this as a “visual colonization” of their trauma. It is impossible to distinguish the innocent from the guilty (664-666). When future generations look at these historical images, it is plausible that the real stories behind Les Tondues will be largely ignored, and false memories of post-liberation France will persist. Looking at these silent photos, one may only see the punishment of a supposed traitor and not the public restoration of patriarchal control. It is important to note that some of these women did work with the Nazis against France, but there are significant gaps in research about why certain women would be compelled to collaborate and if they were forced against their will. We cannot assume from a photo whether or not a woman was either innocent or guilty, but we can understand the circumstances under which these women were under. The media often fails to share the side of the narrative of how the punishments became a way for men and the nation to feel morally cleansed after German occupation. Therefore, this reinforces the idea that the media can pass on inaccurate memories of post WWII to future generations, creating a distorted nostalgia of the time period.
Media representation during WWII was subjective and failed to accurately depict the perspectives of all women, therefore contributing to false memories of the time period by future generations. Prior to WWII, most women were confined to the domestic sphere. However, WWII films alter these boundaries, signalling a shift. In the film Went the Day Well? (1942), homes are illustrated as a place of danger and women are seen as participants in communal defense. The film Millions Like Us (1943), portrays a family where traditional patriarchal authority is weakening and women take on roles once reserved for men. They gain military responsibilities, such as handling weapons, making strategic decisions, and organizing resistance (De Cacqueray, 2). Lastly, in A Canterbury Tale (1944), three main characters, two men and a woman, are all displaced from their homes, creating gender equality due to shared experiences. When the antagonist, known as the “glue man” stages attacks, the woman, Allison, shows initiative in investigating the attacks. She is aided, but not led by men. Allison drives the plot, signalling a shift in cinema gender roles (3). Across these three wartime films, women are seen mostly outside of the home. WWII films gave women more vocal power than seen in pre-war cinema (7-8). As women did gain visible forms of power, supreme power remained male. Went the Day Well? opens and closes with a male narrator. In A Canterbury Tale, the film closes out with Allison under a fatherly arm. Millions Like Us was a propaganda film, encouraging women to join the workforce or military, but there are undertones of equality being temporary or uncertain (9-10). Despite this, these film representations of women achieving significantly more power in society can be misleading and can contribute to collective false memories of gender roles during the wartime years. Patriarchal control was still quite apparent and in European countries such as France, society pushed women around and gave them little power in order for men to feel in control (Moore, 671). While these films may show one perspective on women during WWII, they certainly do not reflect the experiences of all women.
The media plays a significant role in how future generations remember certain historical events or time periods. Media portrayals serve as a form of storytelling; when they are not fully accurate, society may not receive all the information they need to correctly characterize a particular event. Penny Summerfield, a former Professor of Modern History at the University of Manchester, furthers this idea as she explores the Mass Observation Archive. She uses the Mass Observation Archive as a unique resource to study everyday experiences and memories of the war as it uses diaries and “directives” to gather information from ordinary citizens. In 2009, Summerfield sent a special directive asking about the impact of WWII on people’s lives since 1945. Wartime media had a significant impact on shaping the memory of the war for those who were born after the event (2-3). For example, Frances, who was born in the United Kingdom in 1921, served in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. Her memories of the war are filled with trauma and guilt, shaped by the horrors of the Nazi atrocities, the loss of friends, and the stigma that airmen “lacked moral fibre.” She criticized the film, The Dam Busters (1955), for glorifying bombing and ignoring suffering (4-5). In comparison, Pauline, who was born in 1954, grew up enjoying wartime films. Her memory of the war is positive as a result of selective storytelling in wartime cinema. She remembers the war as a time of community, camaraderie, and women’s growing independence (6-7). In her article Maori Oral Narratives, Pakeha Written Texts: Two Forms of Telling History, Judith Binney, a former Professor of History at the University of Auckland, discusses how when oral traditions are written down, bits and pieces can be lost in translation and selective recording can occur (203). Binney builds on the idea that in order for one to truly grasp a story or idea, it must be heard from the original source. There are benefits and drawbacks to oral narratives versus written down texts (213). Oral traditions can change over time and details can be altered. However, written texts are more fixed but interpretation changes over time (214). It is important to acknowledge that no matter where the story is coming from, different perspectives can be left out, therefore diminishing the quality of the piece. When people are exposed to subjective media about WWII, such as films or photography, the collective memory of the event changes and we may forget important things that should be prevented in the future.
To combat these gaps in historical memory, public education should increase studies on how to determine the accuracy of wartime and postwar media. Greater knowledge of media literacy could give the future generation the information needed to analyze who produced the content, and what story they might be motivated to share. From there, one could look deeper and see what voices might be missing. However, this is not accessible to everyone, and it may not fully counteract the emotional power of film narratives, which can have a greater hold on shaping memory rather than facts. Additionally, one could recover and amplify female voices who experienced events before and after WWII, as seen in Penny Summerfield’s work with the Mass Observation Archive. This could give visibility to authentic female experiences, rather than a subjective cinema portrayal distorted by propaganda. However, this may not be the most ideal proposal, as many primary voices have been lost, and their memories may have shifted over time.
Postwar media content misrepresented the lives of women during and after WWII, exaggerating their social advancement, leading to false memories of the postwar period being a time of greater gender equality. A solution to this could be to encourage modern filmmakers to highlight marginalized stories of women during and after WWII. Elizabeth de Cacqueray explains that wartime films such as Went the Day Well? and Millions Like Us often overstated women’s freedoms, contributing to a false narrative, as the patriarchy still had a stronghold on society (9). Looking at women’s experiences such as Les Tondues in France, postwar media photographs tended to reinforce their shame instead of showing them as victims (Moore, 666-669). Moreover, films can reach a wide audience, making this a feasible solution to expand the collective memory of WWII in society. New films and media based on female perspectives and research could challenge past portrayals and result in more accurate interpretations of women’s lives during and after WWII. Through these retellings, the amplification of marginalized voices can reshape how future generations remember women’s experiences during WWII.
Works Cited
Binney, Judith. “Maori Oral Narratives, Pakeha Written Texts: Two Forms of Telling History.”
New Zealand Journal of History, Vol. 38, No. 2, Oct. 2004, pp. 203-215
de Cacqueray, Elizabeth. “New Slants on Gender and Power Relations in British Second World
War Films.” Miranda: Revue Pluridisciplinaire du Monde Anglophone, Vol 2, 2010, pp 1-13, EBSCO, https://doi.org/10.4000/miranda.1146, Accessed 24 Oct. 2025.
Kelly, Mike. “Shorn Women: Gender and Punishment in Liberation France.” The English
Historical Review, Vol. 119 Issue 482, 2004, EBSCO, Gale Academic OneFile Select, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A118987644/EAIM?u=nysl_me_hghsl&sid=bookmark-EAIM&xid=a4ac7569. Accessed 26 Oct. 2025.
Moore, Alison M. “History, Memory and Trauma in Photography of the Tondues: Visuality of
the Vichy Past through the Silent Image of Women” Gender & History, Vol.17 No.3, 2005, pp. 657–681. EBSCO, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0953-5233.2005.00400.x, Accessed 26 Oct. 2025.
Norberg, Johan. “False Nostalgia.” Reason, Reason Magazine, Jan. 2022, pp. 8-13
Summerfield, Penny. “Conflict, Power and Gender in Women’s Memories of the Second World
War: a Mass-Observation Study.” Miranda: Revue Pluridisciplinaire du Monde Anglophone, Vol 2, 2010, pp. 1-13, EBSCO, https://doaj.org/article/3343baee3e544fdcbfb9c76cc07fb88c, Accessed 26 Oct. 2025.
