The Death of Christian Britain

— The Death of Christian Britain —
a liberalisation) in 1934, and though moral panics continued about popular
culture, their impact on both public and politics tended to become localised
and temporary. 136 The impact of mass unemployment in the 1930s may
have contributed to a reduced demonisation of male immoralities.
Nonetheless, the transition of the 1930s was far from complete. Not
only did discourses on religious identity remain gendered within popular
culture, but pre-1930 evangelicalism had contributed profoundly to the
gendering of cultural forms. Media read, seen or heard by women tended
to emphasise the vulnerability of male piety, and had established a tradition
of portraying men as the moral villains of the piece. Media consumed
by men, on the other hand, became increasingly focused, especially after
1870, on how men might be ‘secular’ heroes. What was starting to change
in the late 1930s was that men were no longer being targeted for the induction
of moral or religious anxiety. Women were no longer being required
by discourse to challenge men into submission to a pious domesticity, but
to provide a contented domesticity for them.
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