Sexuality and citizenship: the state and girls' leisure provision in England, 1939-45

Abstract

It is widely accepted that girls' leisure provision in England has historically been of low priority except where girls have been seen to lack moral supervision and instruction in domestic and maternal skills. This is, in fact, largely unsubstantiated in relation to state initiatives during the twentieth century. We know little, for instance, about the gender dimensions of the Service of Youth scheme which was launched during the Second World War, establishing the foundations of today's Youth Service. This paper explores the place of girls' leisure on the state's wartime agenda. While leisure organisations were promoted as a means of regulating girls' heterosexuality, they were also used to harness the energies of young ‘citizens' to the war effort. However, girls were not mobilised as citizens in the same ways as boys. Through a close examination of the construction and implementation of the Service of Youth scheme this paper maps out the ways in which the state sought to organise girls' leisure and it unravels the often competing objectives and concerns which produced the distinctive gender dimensions of wartime leisure provision

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