The Homogeneous Representation of Les Tondues as Sexual Collaborators and its Impact upon the French Récit Nationale
Keywords:
Les Tondues, War Trauma, Collective Memory, Gender, Gender and Women's Studies, World War II, Vichy France, Feminism in France, Twentieth Century European History, Twentieth Century French HistoryAbstract
This essay examines the representation of Les Tondues, women whose
head’s were shaved following the second world war, primarily in France, as punishment for collaboration. The general consensus is that these women were punished for sexual collaboration and romantic relationships with German soldiers. This is true in only 42% cases. This essay seeks to explain why the lasting myth of French collaboration is of collaboration horizontale, to query why these women were chosen as the target for public rancour, and to examine how the circulation of these photographs has coloured the national and international conception of the French récit national of collaboration.
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