Browsing by Subject "baby boomers"

This thesis examines the intergenerational effects of the Second World War on Finnish women’s role and mentality. The research is motivated by the intent to understand intergenerational long-term effects of war in ordinary people’s lives. The effects of war on women’s mentality or the intergenerational social effects have not been much researched in Finnish military or social history. During the war most working-age men spent long periods in the battlefront, whilst women were mostly responsible for the everyday life in the home front. Women’s already heavy workload increased both during and after the war. In addition to taking care of the household and children, the dominant social atmosphere in the reconstruction period encouraged women not to overly burden the men who had already suffered in the war, and to nurture the wounded. Veterans were victims of war as well, and women and children had to endure their post-war symptoms, such as nervousness, unpredictable and aggressive behaviour, and heavy drinking. The culture of silence and the prevalent emotional regime endorsed self-control and concealing of one’s grieves. The effects of war on the war generation are first examined through earlier research, after which it is analysed, whether these effects have been intergenerationally passed onto Finnish women of the baby boomer generation. Qualitative content analysis and methods of oral history are used to analyse autobiographies written in 1991 by women of the baby boomer generation, as well as written interview answers of the same women from the year 2020. The research material was selected from the Finnish Literature Society’s collection Satasärmäinen nainen, and limited to women with agrarian backgrounds. The theoretical framework includes especially mentality, new military history, women’s history, and psychohistory, that is, applying psychoanalysis in social history. Mentality is defined as a collective way of thinking and life attitude that is partly conscious, partly unconscious. Mentality affects people’s actions, choices, as well as life paths. The research is theoretical by nature, and offers one possible explanatory model for a predominant mentality in our culture, which also contributes to the inequality of women and men. The demand of self-sacrifice and fulfilling one’s responsibilities were directed at Finnish women in the reconstruction period, and women adopted them as a part of their mentality. The war strengthened women’s role as nurturers and the responsible ones in everyday life, as well as the mentality of endurance. Nurturing, responsibility, endurance and survival can also be observed in the roles and mentality of the baby boomer generation’s women. Together with childhood experiences these can also have an effect on women’s mental and physical health. Diligence and self-sacrifice have been somewhat eased between generations, and especially the culture of silence is something that women have consciously tried to get rid of.