WW23+Impact+on+Women

=The impact of the war on women’s lives and experiences in Britain=

=
 * In what ways were women involved in the war effort?
 * Did the war have a lasting impact on women’s lives?
 * What was the impact for different social classes in Britain?

=Volunteer roles= = = Women in Britain initially filled traditional roles in volunteer work. **VAD – Voluntary Aid Detachments** – formed to provide medical assistance for soldiers. Initially they were not permitted to go to the front, but in 1915 the government realised how vital they would be to wounded soldiers and they were sent to all theatres of war.

Lyrics: R.P. Weston Music: Herman Darewski
 * [[image:Sister_Susie's_Sewing_Shirts.jpg width="391" height="538" align="right"]]Sister Susie's Sewing Shirts**

//Watch and listen to a Sonora Elite Phonograph play a 1914 recording of "Sister Susie":// media type="youtube" key="da-62vz5zZg?fs=1" height="385" width="480"

Sister Susie's sewing in the kitchen on a Singer, There's miles and miles of flannel on the floor and up the stairs, And father says it's rotten getting mixed up in the cotton And sitting on the needles that she leaves upon the chairs. And should you knock at our street door, Ma whispers "Come inside" Then when you ask where Susie is, she says with loving pride:

cho: Sister Susie's sewing shirts for soldiers, Such skill at sewing shirts our shy young sister Susie shows! Some soldiers send epistles, say they'd sooner sleep in thistles Than the saucy soft short shirts for soldiers sister Susie sews.

I forgot to tell you that our sister Susie's married, And when she isn't sewing shirts, she's sewing other things, Then little sister Molly says, "Oh Susie's bought a dolly, She's making all the clothes for it with pretty bows and strings." Says Susie, "Don't be silly" as she blushes and she sighs, Then mother smiles and whispers with a twinkle in her eyes.

=Work= = =
 * Most employed women were in domestic services.[[image:Violet_jessop_Voluntary_Aid_Detachment.jpg align="right" caption="A WWI VAD nurse"]]
 * Thousands recruited into industry.
 * Gross anomalies in rates of pay.
 * Trade unions resented women entering the workforce and taking men’s jobs. Reluctant to push for equal pay. Expected that women would leave the workforce after the war. Some women did unionise and strike for better pay: Mary Macarthur – union leader for munitions workers.
 * Nursing – the preferred work for middle- and upper-class women.
 * Women’s Land Army: women were encouraged to fill the shortages of men in agriculture. There were more than 18,000 women on the land by 1918. Poor conditions, low pay, resentment from male farmers.
 * Other work included clerical work and traditional male jobs such as smiths, drivers, gravediggers. But women were not accepted as train drivers or in the iron and steel industry.

1915: Leeds firm prosecuted for working women on 25-30 hour shifts - no conviction. The judge said, "The most important thing in the world today is that ammunition should be made".
 * [[image:god_speed_the_plough_small.jpg width="285" height="444"]] || [[image:4000_women_wanted_for_fruit_picking.jpg caption="1915 Poster"]] ||

**Munitions** - 80% of munitions workers were women. || || **Number of women working** || **Number of women in munitions work** || //Conditions://
 * July 1914 || 3.22 million || 212,000 ||
 * January 1918 || 4.8 million || 950,000 ||
 * 12 hour shifts
 * Dangerous (see Silvertown disaster below) – 200 female munitions workers killed during the war
 * Skin became yellow from the chemicals – called ‘canaries’
 * Munitions workers received higher pay than women in domestic services. Mostly young working class women.

//Silvertown explosion// On 19 January 1917, an explosion in the Silvertown munitions factory in East London killed 69 people, injured 400 and destroyed many surrounding buildings.

=Military roles=

Women filled non-combatant roles in the military: clerks, telephonists, cooks, drivers. Special branches of the armed services were established for women:
 * WAAC – Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps - formed in 1917 and renamed Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Force in 1918.
 * WRAF – Women’s Royal Air Force
 * WRNS – Women’s Royal Naval Service

Women did not have the same military status as men: they were enrolled rather than enlisted; they would be tried in a civil court rather than a military court; they were not given military ranks.
 * [[image:WRAF.jpg width="303" height="469"]] || [[image:Women's_Royal_Naval_service.jpg]] || [[image:Queen_Mary's_Army_Auxiliary.jpg width="296" height="447"]] ||

=Suffrage=

The suffragette movement was suspended at the beginning of the war. Emmeline Pankhurst took an active role in encouraging enlistment and encouraging women into munitions work.

In February 1918, Parliament passed the Representation of the People Act. This gave women over 30 the right to vote. (It also widened male suffrage to include all male householders over 21 – previously there were property restrictions.)

There is debate about whether this was a reward for the efforts made by women during the war, or whether it was a natural development of social policy that had been occurring in other countries. Women did not get equal voting rights with men until 1928.

**Source**

In World War I Britain, about 1 million mostly lower-class women worked in munitions jobs. They were called “munitionettes” or “Tommy’s sister.” Unlike nurses, the munitions workers could not profess pacifism since their work directly contributed to the fighting. In fact, in 1918, Scottish women working at a shell factory raised money and bought a warplane for the air force. However, the munitionettes’ main motivation was financial, contrary to the popular belief that it was patriotic. The women found the wages “at first liveable and later lucrative.” Compared with domestic work, war work “offered escape from jobs of badly paid drudgery.” However, although they earned more than they would have doing women’s work, the women received nowhere near the fortunes they had been led to expect when deciding to take war work.

Eric Leed argues that World War I created for women “an enormously expanded range of escape routes from the constraints of the private family” because the war caused “the collapse of those established, traditional distinctions” that had restricted women. A Punch cartoon of the time shows a soldier’s wife who receives an allowance: “This war is’ eaven – twenty-five shillings a week and no ’usband bothering about!” Costello credits World War I with winning women both the vote and a “new liberation” in fashion and behaviour (smoking, bobbed hair, short skirts, and hedonism). But for British women war workers in World War I, “no doubt conditions varied a lot.” Conditions worsened over time, making 1917–18 “the hardest year of the war for civilians,” especially in the pan-European 1918 influenza epidemic. Some women complained of barracks-like hostels with poor food and little heat, whereas others found accommodations clean, if crowded, and occasionally even comfortable. Most often, though, the woman war worker had “little in her life now except work and sleep.” Work shifts of 10–12 hours were “not uncommon.” Conditions in factories were, for women, an “alien environment” of deafening noise and depressing grime, encased by blacked-out windows.

Other scholars doubt that World War I was an exhilarating, erotic release for women who took on traditionally male roles. Some women who drove “trucks, cranes, cars, and motorbikes in Britain during the war did find it thrilling,” but many others were “killed, injured, and poisoned” in munitions factories. German women in World War I “shoulder[ed] double burdens,” working at heavy machinery but still responsible for their domestic duties.

Goldstein, Joshua S. War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa, Cambridge University Press, 2001 http://www.warandgender.com/wgwomwwi.htm

**Source**

The outward signs of their freedom were flaunted gaily. Many used language that would have shocked their mothers; many started to wear cosmetics; smoking became widespread; and women bought drinks in public houses. Before the war short skirts and brassieres had come in. During the war they completely ousted long dresses and camisoles. Well-meaning committees tried to discourage Land Girls who, like most women doing heavy work or working outside, wore trousers from wearing them off-duty, but without success.

In defiance of the ever-present casualty figures, England was gripped by a feverish gaiety. ‘Give the boys on leave a good time’ was the universal sentiment. As one woman remembered it, ‘If these young women who, as they read the casualty lists, felt fear in their hearts, did not seize experience at once, they knew that for many of them it would elude them forever. Sex became both precious and unimportant: precious as a desired personal experience; unimportant as something without implications.’ Young girls were gripped by ‘khaki fever’ and hovered around army camps. By the end of the war the illegitimacy rate had increased 30 per cent. The marriage rate also increased sharply. Many marriages swiftly contracted, swiftly broke up. There were three times as many diverces in 1920 as in 1910.

Black, L., ‘Women at War and Work’, in Taylor AJP and Roberts JM (eds) History of the 20th Century, 1968