I think it's the uniform

[kindkit]

Rotha Lintorn-Orman, driver with the Women's Reserve Ambulance during the First World War and founder in 1923 of the British Fascisti, the first fascist party in the UK. Disturbingly hot.




I found this picture in a really interesting article about Mary Richardson, a militant suffragette in early 20th century and a fascist supporter by the 1930s.

Comments

[onyxlynx]

Definitely the uniform. Also the hair.

(Interesting, who became fascist. Didn't they notice the tenets of fascism, or were they "Oh, that doesn't apply to me" sorts of special snowflakes.?)

[kindkit]

Early fascism, including early Nazism, had a strong element or at least rhetoric of anticapitalism that could appeal to people who were basically on the left but unwary. For example, Michael Burn (journalist, on-and-off boyfriend of Guy Burgess, later a commando and POW in Colditz) was briefly a Nazi sympathizer and then became a communist. I suppose the state-focus of fascism wouldn't necessarily be a big problem to people on the authoritarian left, and a disturbing number of folks seem to have been unbothered by the nationalism, xenophobia, and (in Nazism) anti-semitism.

I find it harder to see how feminists were deluded by fascism, though.

ETA: Edited because I used entirely the wrong icon.

[hagsrus]

For some reason "quaint Irene" of Mapp and Lucia popped into my head.

[kindkit]

I'm not familiar with Mapp and Lucia. Context?

[hagsrus]

http://mappandluciaglossary.blogspot.com/2008/03/q-is-for-quaint-irene.html

[lilacsigil]

I have the feeling that fascism appealed to a lot of people who were convinced that they, personally, should be in charge of things. Great photo, though.

[kindkit]

It is a great photo, and, well, she does look like the sort of person who might believe she personally ought to be in charge of things. I get the sense of a very, very determined personality.

[tree_and_leaf]

It's the coat. And the hair. And probably also the cheek-bones and the jawline...

[kindkit]

*nods* For me it's the androgyny, which is a cumulative effect of her very strong face, her hair, her clothes, and her stance. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't sometimes like uniforms very much!

[tree_and_leaf]

But yes, she is disturbingly hot.

[vilakins]

It's not just the uniform. That's an amazing photo.

Pity ab0ut her beliefs.

[kindkit]

I've seldom seen a photo where such a strong sense of a personality comes through.

[vilakins]

Absolutely. She looks so strong and interesting.

Back then it was an era full of possibility for women, many of whom grabbed the opportunity to claim men's clothes and freedom. Odd that WW1 created it but WW2 put women right back again.

[kindkit]

Odd that WW1 created it but WW2 put women right back again

I'm not sure I follow you. Are you talking about the post-WWII years when women were told to get back in the kitchen so that men could have the jobs? As far as I know, the war itself opened up all kinds of spaces for women to do non-domestic work, not just in factories and on farms but in the military itself, which hadn't been the case in the First World War.

[vilakins]

Yes, that. It happened here too, and the 50s were so much worse for woman than the 20s and 30s and lacked the heady hope of the earlier times. OTOH WW1 changed attitudes and even clothing (to much freer styles).