http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_feather

A white feather has been a traditional symbol of cowardice, used and recognised especially within the British Army and in countries associated with the British Empire since the 18th century.

In August 1914, at the start of the First World War, Admiral Charles Fitzgerald founded the Order of the White Feather with support from the prominent author Mrs Humphrey Ward. The organization aimed to shame men into enlisting in the British Army by persuading women to present them with a white feather if they were not wearing a uniform.

This was joined by prominent feminists and suffragettes of the time, such as Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel. They, in addition to handing out the feathers, also lobbied to institute an involuntary draft of men, including those who lacked votes due to being too young or not owning property.

The poetry from the period indicates that the campaign was not popular amongst soldiers (e.g. Wilfred Owen's Dulce et Decorum Est) - not least because soldiers who were home on leave could find themselves presented with the feathers.

One such was Private Ernest Atkins who was on leave from the Western Front. He was riding a tram when he was presented with a white feather by a girl sitting behind him. He smacked her across the face with his pay book saying: "Certainly I'll take your feather back to the boys at Passchendaele. I'm in civvies because people think my uniform might be lousy, but if I had it on I wouldn't be half as lousy as you."

The supporters of the campaign were not easily put off. A woman who confronted a young man in a London park demanded to know why he was not in the army. "Because I am a German", he replied. He received a white feather anyway.

Perhaps the most ironic use of a white feather was when one was presented to Seaman George Samson who was on his way in civilian clothes to a public reception in his honour. Samson had been awarded the Victoria Cross for gallantry in the Gallipolli campaign.

"Always remember that while the sufragettes marched for the right to vote, the men of their generation were marching to their deaths in the First World War. Always remember that the first women to demand the vote were safe at home while men died by the millions, eviscerated by machine guns, choking on gas, drowning in mud and corpses or ripped limb from limb by shell fire. Always remember that these women, who sat at home with tea and crumpets, went around handing out white feathers, the symbol of cowardice, to any man who did not want to die screaming in the mud of Flanders. Always remember what the white feathers really stand for; what women really are and what men are to them. Always remember the white feathers.

And while you're at it, don't forget that while feminists staged protests on American campuses in the 60's and 70's because they didn't like the lives society expected of them, their brothers, their lovers and their sons were being drafted into Vietnam, compelled not by "social expectations" but by law, by the government these women voted for, to fight and die in a far distant land. And these women were only at university in the first place because their fathers, who were drafted into World War Two, raised them and paid for their education."

-anonymous

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edit #2: Possibly my favorite part of the wiki article, which I left out:

The writer Compton Mackenzie, then a serving soldier, complained about the activities of the Order of the White Feather. He argued that these "idiotic young women were using white feathers to get rid of boyfriends of whom they were tired"

If you're beta, women would rather see you die than date you.