"There's a Girl for Every Soldier"

Gender Perspectives in World War I British Song

By Joslyn Felicijan

British music halls during World War I entertained their working- and lower-class audiences through the popular mockery of societal realities, such as the conservative roles of British women. Yet, the First World War challenged traditional gender expectations through the situational necessity of female wartime workers. Even though the majority of wartime popular hall music resonated with the societal gender stereotypes of feminine domesticity and motherhood, a distinct, yet rare, number of wartime songs thanked women for their progressive wartime employment. Through a comparative analysis of forty-one songs per- formed in wartime music halls investigating the similarities and differences between popular music and twentieth-century British gender stereotypes, a distinct contrast emerges differentiating wartime entertainment gender portrayals and traditional British female standards.