Antimilitarism, Citizenship and Motherhood: The Formation and Early Years of the Women’s International League (WIL), 1915-1919

This article examines the concept of motherhood and peace in the British women’s movement during the Great War. It does so by focusing on the Women’s International League (WIL)—the British section of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). Drawing on the WIL papers, the article shows how a section of the movement continued to lobby for female representation during the war alongside its calls for peace. WIL referred to the social and cultural experiences of motherhood, which allowed it to challenge the discourse on gender and to build bridges between women of former enemy nations. This case study examines how maternalist rhetoric influenced feminism and sheds light on how British women attempted to enter the political sphere by linking women’s maternal experience to their demands for citizenship. [publisher]