According to source D3, the war greatly helped the status of women. The source tells us that women fought for centuries to be equal to men, and the Second World War that gave women this opportunity. The source says that the war helped women to prove they were capable of doing jobs requiring intelligence, and excel at them. The source also says that the war helped many women to see themselves as something other than a wife and mother. Source D3 claims that during the war women proved they were equal to men.
Source D6 is useful in showing a change in attitude to women. The source focuses on wartime nurseries and the Education Committee’s decision to allow married women to teach. The extracts that tell us about the opening of wartime nurseries suggest that women working were more widely accepted. The other extracts in this source centre on the decision to allow married women to teach, and this suggests quite a substantial change in attitude to women; however, married women could only keep their job providing no single females applied for it. This proves that although there was a definite change in attitude, this change was not that significant. The other extracts in this source are about the opening of wartime nurseries. These extracts enforce the idea that there was a change in attitude towards women, as it proves that women were accepted as workers by the government. However, these extracts were written during the war, when the British government had no alternative but to provide nurseries for the female workforce they desperately needed. Although the extracts in this source are useful in showing a change in attitude towards women during the war, they do not tell us about people’s attitudes post war.
Source D1 comments on the fact that the war was a turning point for women, and sources D6, D7 and D8 agree with this point. Certain extracts from source D6 tell us about the decision of the Education Committee during the war to allow married women to teach. This decision would probably never have been made if it were not for the war as there was a lack of male teachers probably fighting away, and young single women popularly joined the forces. Source D7 says that the war was a turning point for women because the period began to raise women’s expectations of themselves and their capabilities. Source D8 tells us about the change in attitude towards women’s leisure time. According to this source a large amount of people interviewed (over half) thought the idea of women drinking in public houses was acceptable. However, source D8 does not comment on who the “people interviewed” were, and so this source’s statistics could be biased. In spite of this, I believe sources D8 and D7 to be quite reliable, due to the fact that they are both ‘mass-observations’, which not only make their statistics official but reliable because a “mass” suggests that a large amount of people participated. Both D7 and D8 agree that the war did not change the roles and status of women, but it changed the way women thought of themselves, and some people’s attitudes. Source D6 is not as useful in showing us how the war was a turning point for women because as primary evidence, it cannot accurately predetermine the events of post war, and it only focuses on certain aspects of change resulting from the war.
The Second World War affected the lives and status of women in many different ways. Source D1 describes the war as a turning point for the status of women, and mentions that women eventually achieved some equality in the way they were paid. Source D3 agrees with source D1 by saying how women fought for equality, and how they wanted to work. Source D3 tells us that women were excluded from certain social and occupational spheres, and that they used the war to help them change their roles. Both of these sources are secondary evidence, and so are quite reliable in giving us a rounded view on how the war affected the status of women. Source D2 contains one woman’s opinion on working during the war, and this view contradicts sources D1 and D3 as the woman says that she wanted to stay at home and have children. Of course, this is only one opinion but it does represent some women. Sources D1 and D3 do not include any information on the women who wanted their status to remain the same.
Source D5 is similar to source D3. Both sources comment on the capability and resourcefulness of women, and agree that they achieved a lot in the period of war. Both sources are very positive in their praise of women’s response to the outbreak of war. Source D5 is primary evidence of a meeting between women and the minister Mr.Ernest Bevin. The source is quite reliable as it is primary evidence; however, it is likely the minister left out any negative views on the status of women because he was at a female meeting.
Source D4 is taken from an interview with a WAAF officer who worked in the Operations room at Debden during the Battle of Britain. This woman had an extremely stressful job, so it is not surprising that she comments on the difficulties of returning to civilian life after the war. This source is reliable in giving us insight on the way some women felt about peacetime.
Source D6 contains extracts of primary evidence, and tells us about certain decisions made by the government during the war to ensure women could contribute as a workforce. However, this source does not tell us how attitudes changed after the war. The government wanted to change the status of women during the war because they needed women to work. According to source D7 the government changed its’ stance completely on the idea of women working after the war because they no longer needed them. This proves that the decisions made by the government during the war were made to influence women into working, and could be viewed as a type of propaganda. In spite of this, these decisions changed many of people’s attitudes forever. Source D7 makes the point that the war did not so much change the roles and status of women, but it changed the way women thought of themselves and made them more confident. Source D8 tells us that a majority of people thought it acceptable for women to drink in public houses, which shows that the war changed many of people’s attitudes, as women did not drink in pubs before the war. Both of these sources show that the war affected the lives of women significantly, and their status was improved in a positive way.