“Mothers! Have you given life to your son that he may kill the sons of other mothers?”

“Mothers! Have you given life to your son that he may kill the sons of other mothers?”

This poster, produced by Great Britain’s Northern Friends Peace Board in 1938, appeals to the ethics of family and maternity. It could be read as a response both to the Spanish Civil War and as a protest of the impending Second World War. In Three Guineas, Virginia Woolf addresses similar themes to the image here, as she points to the separation of the spheres of men and women, the public and the domestic. War manifests in the public realm, dominated by men. The domestic sphere of women, while suffocating and repressive, can be the center of care and peace, as exemplified by the way mothers love and care for their children. The message here, posed in the form of the question, puts decision-making power in the hands of women, which at the time was a foreign concept to those trapped in the domestic realm. The mother has a choice in her actions, in how she teaches values to her children, and that choice will greatly affect the development of war and peace. This poster suggests that the role of the mother has a strong capability to create peace.

Northern Friends Peace Board and the Friends Peace Committee

1938

Rosie Cohen

Poster