Negotiating fraternal gender lines in World War I: Ettie Rout, venereal disease, and the female brother.

During World War I (WWI), Aotearoa/New Zealand's Ettie Rout notoriously advocated safe brothels and prophylaxis for use amongst New Zealand troops while on leave. Drawing on Derrida's The politics of friendship, alongside works by Carl Schmitt and Wollstonecraft, this article considers the ways in which Rout negotiated the gender lines of WWI to position herself and others as female brothers participating in an allied fraternity at war. To these ends, it considers Rout's utilisation of the trope of the colonial helpmeet with regard to the spread of venereal disease and the needs of soldiers. It then argues for an understanding of Rout that sees her as necessarily an enemy of the state, a figure consanguineous with the 'spectre of hostility' posited by Derrida and Schmitt. It also argues for an appreciation of Rout's work with prophylaxis and the regulation of prostitutes as a means of positioning prostitutes within the allied fraternity at war, alongside soldiers and also alongside herself as an enfranchised New Zealand woman. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]