"THIS ROT SPREADS LIKE AN EPIDEMIC" POLICING ADOLESCENT FEMALE SEXUALITY IN ICELAND DURING WORLD WAR II
"THIS ROT SPREADS LIKE AN EPIDEMIC" POLICING ADOLESCENT FEMALE SEXUALITY IN ICELAND DURING WORLD WAR II
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Date
2000
Authors
Baldursdottir, Bara
Advisor
Gullickson, Gay L.
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Abstract
The thesis examines events, perspectives and prevailing discourses that led to the
criminalization of adolescent female sexuality in Iceland during World War II.
Provisionary law was passed that became the foundation to submit young women to the
mercy of special Juvenile Court, which tried girls for real or suspected sexual
relationships with British and American servicemen, and sentenced them to rural homes
or to a reformatory. Through the critical theory of Nira Juval-Davis, I have demonstrated
that in the national discourse, Icelandic women who dated the foreign troops, stepped
over the line that signified the nation 's boundaries and failed to become the bearers of the
collectivity's identity. Their lack of Icelandicness turned them into the threatening
"other". They were placed on the margin of society, as legal actions were taken to protect
and police their sexuality.