Gender, Empire and Citizenship

Focusing on the South African War of 1899-1902, this groundbreaking study bridges the gap between traditional imperial history and gender history to explore how British women experienced the empire in the age of the 'new imperialism'.
Gender, empire and citizenship reveals how British middle-class women, already well-integrated into party politics and associational culture, responded to the war in South Africa. It explores women's participation in the early anti-war movement, analysing the gendering of peace activism and women's arguments against war. Furthermore, it highlights how military philanthropy allowed patriotic women to make real contributions to the empire's war effort and investigates women's activism in imperial propaganda campaigns 'selling the war' at home and overseas. Casting new light on the concentration camps, the volume situates Emily Hobhouse within the wider women's 'pro-Boer' movement, provides the first in-depth analysis of the government Ladies' Committee headed by Millicent Garrett Fawcett, and examines how hundreds of British women acted as agents of the imperial state in the camps as teachers, doctors and nurses. Analysing how gender and race shaped British women's wartime activism and expressions of female citizenship, it traces the consequences for women's public action through the Edwardian era to the First World War.
In foregrounding women's agency and activism, the book opens innovative new perspectives on British reactions to the South African War. It also offers a snapshot of a vibrant, diverse female political culture as a controversial imperial war forced politically engaged women to articulate their relationship to empire and the state.