Feminine Bravery: The Girl's Realm (1898–1915) and the Second Boer War

With the advent of the Second Boer War in 1899, The Girl’s Realm incorporated heroism within its production of English femininity by presenting images of wartime girlhood where girls understood their roles and responsibilities as supporters of the war effort. Nonetheless, the representations of feminine bravery in the magazine are complex and somewhat ambiguous. Although the magazine encourages heroism in a variety of forms, its contributors betray a tendency to fall back onto traditional domestic models of bravery. Thus the Boer War was pivotal in depictions of girls’ bravery, yet it also limited that bravery.