Reenactment Studies and Gender
Due to the male overrepresentation in hobby reenactment groups, scholars have so far studied, described, and analyzed the phenomenon by focusing on the motivations and experiences of male participants (Horwitz, 1998; Thompson, 2004; West, 2014).
If gender is addressed in analyzing reenactment, the male perspective is foregrounded; for instance, questions about how battle reenactment stabilizes or challenges male identities have been tackled thoroughly (Hunt, 2008). However, there is a small body of literature dealing with female participation in historical reenactment. While some of the works analyze how women take part in the reenactment scene, other scholars transcend these aspects and ask bigger questions regarding the possibilities and boundaries of gender performance and the ability“You can’t just put men in the field and be accurate” 219 to challenge past and present gender conventions inherent in reenactment practices. With regard to gender representation, some scholars argue that reenactment is inherently conservative and, as such, stabilizes and legitimizes gender conventions despite the fact that women actively take part (Carla-Uhink and Fiore, 2016). Especially in conjunction with a strict understanding of authenticity as historical accuracy and fidelity, reenactment tends to reproduce past structures and practices of differentiation along markers such as gender, race, or class, thus uncritically enshrining them in the present. Accordingly, reenactment gains an “inherently conservative and objectifying” character which reinforces the “stereotypical reception of the historical content itself and the widespread perception of gender roles and gender boundaries in the contemporary societies in which the re-enactments take place” (Carla-Uhink and Fiore, 2016, p. 200). Reenactment thus lacks subversive potential to challenge gender roles: instead, it “presents the participants themselves as well as the public with a strong image of gender roles as they are produced by our contemporary society” (pp. 201-202). Tivers (2002) notes that if women are involved in reenactment practices, they are “placed within the family space, defined in traditional male fashion. The male/public, female/private dichotomies are taken for granted” (p. 193). Muller and Schwarz (2008) draw similar conclusions based on the analysis of the British reality TV show The 1900 House, in which one modern family was placed within a house restored by experts according to the standards of the period around 1900. Despite the fact that this show specifically focuses on the female participant and her experience of the reenacted past, the authors show that gender fulfills a stabilizing function in this setting, and attention is instead drawn away from both past and contemporary gender inequalities.Other scholars, however, claim that there is subversive potential in reenactment regarding gender representation and historical meaning-making (Davis, 2012). Australian theater and performance scholar Stacy Holman Jones takes this argument further and sees the potential in reenactment to trigger processes of (self-)reflection about gender in the present. She draws attention to Judith Butler’s post-structuralist theory of gender, arguing that not only gender but also sex is a (social) construct. Butler understands gender not as an expression of an identity but a becoming and an effect of repeated acts; Holman Jones notes that in Butler’s theory, “gender per- formativity challenges the idea that there is some ‘essential’ and singular gendered self that then gets communicated socially,” adding that gender is “a co-constructed and ephemeral performance of emergent selves” (2020, p. 90). The performativity of gender then consists of repeated acts which are (re)performed. These repeated performances “are not only acts but reenactments and [their] form thus reinforces the idea of gender as a belated imitation rather than a stable original” (Young, 1999, p. 183). Due to the performativity and constructedness of gender, Holman Jones identifies a “potential for resistance” within reenactment, in that reenactment has theability to destabilize perceptions of “fixed” or “natural” gender roles by failing to precisely or exactly repeat them (Holman Jones, 2020, p. 91).
German ethnographer Michaela Fenske argues in a similar vein.
On the basis of the example of a reenacted Biedermeier market in a small German town, she stresses that both male and female reenactors seek stability, security, and clarity about gender roles in the reenacted past, something they are apparently missing in the present day. The motivation to reenact is thus strongly related to the reenactor’s perception and experience of gender roles in the present. For the woman reenactor in her case study, Fenske states that her “time travel” experience to the Biedermeier era facilitates experiences of femininity that are impossible and incompatible with her present-day gender identity—one informed by her biography as a working woman with many obligations. However, Fenske argues that wearing elaborate Biedermeier dresses ought not to be seen as a backlash against women’s liberation or in contrast to a reenactor’s present-day gender identity. Instead, she claims, it facilitates experiences of alterity that are otherwise inaccessible and which enrich the reenactor’s experience of gender identity in her everyday life. The restaging of traditional femininity in Biedermeier dresses is not perceived as restrictive but as an added value, a “newly discovered femininity,” which reflects back on the reenactor’s present-day gender identity.The relation between historical reenactment and gender (representation) surely is a broad topic that can be tackled from various theoretical angles and perspectives. In this chapter, I would like to contribute to this nascent debate by drawing attention to the empirical level and offering findings from fieldwork focusing on women and their experiences and ways of reenacting. As mentioned above, studying female reenactors has become increasingly important because of the growing number of women involved in historical reenactment. The impact of a higher rate of female reenactors in the hobby is diverse. The crucial point is, however, that female participation in reenactment interferes with a male-dominated world and value system, and the mere fact that women are becoming more and more a part of the reenactment scene triggers questions about gender and its representation.
Women have been actively fighting for their right to take part in reenactment, as in the case of Lauren Cook Burgess, who won a sexual discrimination lawsuit against the US National Park Service in 1993 and was subsequently allowed to participate in the Civil War reenactment of Antietam as a fighting soldier (Young, 1999; Hart, 2007). Despite this legal breakthrough, some reenactment groups have upheld their total ban of women in the ranks, while others have started to tolerate the participation of women, as well as people with diverse gender identities, as long as they disguise themselves in such a way that their present-day gender identity remains undetected (Hart, 2007). In other instances, however, female reenactors challenge established modes of displaying the past and focus on female roles off the field of combat. This can be a more influential presence for women than playing the role of a“You can’t just put men in the field and be accurate” 221 disguised soldier, since they redefine the scope of the reenacted battle and underline the impact war had on society.The few studies drawing on empirical evidence regarding women’s engagement in historical reenactment have so far been focused on restagings of the Civil War, which is considered the most popular and widespread form in the US (Davis, 2012; Young, 1999). In this article, I will shift the attention away from the 19th century and address questions of women’s engagement and its impact on American Revolutionary War reenactment. Drawing on ethnographic empirical research material, I will first focus on what motivates women to take part in a strongly male-dominated practice. As a next step, I will present insights into women’s involvement in reenactment and the different forms this takes. On this basis, I will discuss how female ways of reenacting are intertwined with questions about an authentic display.