Women and Femininity under the Metaxas Regime in Greece

Abstract

Authoritarian regimes place significant emphasis on gender roles as part of their ‘imagined communities’, where everyone has their place attributed through evocation of the nation’s ‘history’ and ‘mission’. By placing gender at the core of historical analysis, this article examines the antinomies related to the role of women, and the shifting perceptions of femininity, under the Metaxas regime. It examines the female branch of the National Youth Organisation (EON), a laboratory of a ‘new femininity’, analyses the regime’s discourses and idealised representations of femininity and masculinity, and offers critical exploration of affinities between the Metaxist understanding of womanhood and pre-existing aspects of Greek interwar feminism. The article interprets from these fields the oscillations and contradictions marking Metaxist ideology and practices via-à-vis the role of women, and in doing so sheds new light upon the character of the regime itself.