Reaction
Women were applauded as heroines if they remained within their spheres and only acted as men if it was unavoidable. However, if they stepped out of their spheres or willingly acted as men's equals, they were met with fierce reprehension.
Positive Reactions
People reacted very well to women, like this nurse tending the wounded, who helped out men on the battlefield
- Nurses and women on the home front were respected
- Thought of as heroines of the war, and nurses were called "Angels of the Battlefield" by soldiers
- No woman had to hide her gender to become a nurse
- Women asked to step into government positions previously occupied by men
- In any other time, this would be absurd
- Society highly valued the women who stepped up into government
- Women who only "went where they were needed" gained positive reactions
Negative Reactions
Harper's Weekly and other newspapers spread negative publicity
Insulted and marginalized women for pretending to be men
Turned society against many soldiers and spies, forcing them to keep their roles a secret
Insulted and marginalized women for pretending to be men
Turned society against many soldiers and spies, forcing them to keep their roles a secret
- Women were often attacked by media for taking a controversial role in the war
- Sarah Emma Edmonds, a Civil War soldier and spy, was so terrified of this that she did not collect her pension from service until she was desperately broke (An Uncommon Soldier)
- Nurses who served on the war front were condemned for working on a man’s battlefield
- American society was vehemently against women who became soldiers or spies
- Some women could not even face the prospect of returning to their communities
- The soldier Sarah Rosetta Wakeman wrote in a private letter to her family, “I don’t care anything about coming home for I [am] ashamed to come, and I sometimes think that I never will go home in the world.” (December 28, 1963)
- Shameful and embarrassing for who acted as men in an aggressive manner to serve their country
