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