The gender of resistance: discourses and practices of female resistance in Belgium during the Second World War

Today, resistance is still conceived as a male activity to which women could at best contribute in a supporting position. The existing research rarely takes the specific position of women in 1940 into account. However, their gender - the obligations and expectations attached to 'being a woman' - strongly influenced women's resistance activities. Through an analysis of specifically female resistance, this research will contribute to a new interpretation of the concept of 'resistance' itself. The central hypothesis of this project is that women in their resistance work were not limited to a mainly supportive position and that they broke through traditional gender stereotypes by stepping out of the domestic sphere, or by bringing resistance into the domestic sphere.