Gender and Trauma Since 1900

Is trauma a transhistorical transnational phenomenon? Gender and Trauma challenges the standard history that has led to our contemporary understanding of psychological trauma to answer this question and to explore the impact of gender in the experience and understanding of emotional distress. Bringing together eleven case studies from all over the world it draws on methods from history gender and communication studies to consider how trauma has been understood over the 20th and 21st centuries. Encompassing histories from Australia Britain Indonesia Italy the Soviet Union Timor Leste the United States and Vietnam these examples demonstrate how gender and trauma are inextricably linked and how the term ‘trauma’ has evolved over time. With chapters on war political repression displacement rape and childbirth the cases showcased in this volume highlight two pivotal transformations across the 20th century. First the transformation of the trauma sufferer from perpetrator to victim and second the increased understanding of psychological consequences of sexual assault and domestic violence. Together these diverse stories yield a more nuanced picture of what trauma is how we have understood it alongside gender in the past and how this affects our understanding of it in the present.