By late 1917, so many men went to war that is was mainly women who were working back in Britain. But labour unions fought hard against hiring women in the factories. Women were paid half the wages of men and worked in conditions that were dangerous and sometimes unhealthy. In munitions factories, acid fumes from high explosives damaged workers’ lungs and in addition turned their skin bright yellow! Thousand of women worked long hours filling the shells with explosives and accidental explosives were not rare. Little effort was made to ease the change from working in the home to the work place. Few employers provided childcare for working mothers or even set aside toilets for the female workers. But most employers set up schools in order supply more skilled female workers into the factories. These schools taught the women upholstering, trimming, and other work calling for skilled operatives.
With so many men fighting, women brought in the harvests and kept the farms going. The Women’s Land Army played a crucial role in doing this when the men who would normally work on the farms never returned or returned disabled from the war. One of the comments made by women in the Women’s Land Army was that, “there feet were never dry even in dry weather – simply because they had to work early in the morning and the dew on the grass would enter the boots through the lace holes,”
World war one gave women a chance to show a male dominated society that they could so simply more than stay at home and bring up children. In world war one, women played a vital role in keeping soldiers equipped with ammunition and in many senses they kept the nation moving through with their help in various industries. The role of women wasn’t forced upon them – they chose to take on the jobs the men had originally dominated. They wanted to do a bit for their country and it showed the men that they wer e capable of doing any job just as good as they had done. Before the war women had no socio-economic power at all. By the end of the war, women had proved that they that they were just as important to the war effort as men had been.
At the time, many people believed that the war had helped the advance of women politically and economically. Mrs Millicent Fawcett president of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies from 1897 to 1918, said in 1918: 'The war revolutionised the industrial position of women - it found them serfs and left them free.' The war did offer women increased opportunities in the paid labour market. Between 1914 and 1918, an estimated two million women replaced men in employment, resulting in an increase in the proportion of women in total employment from 24 per cent in July 1914 to 37 per cent by November 1918.
The war opened two valuable doors on women. First, it opened up a wider range of occupations to female workers and hastened the collapse of traditional women's employment, particularly domestic service. From the 19th century to 1911, between 11 and 13 per cent of the female population in England and Wales were domestic servants. By 1931, the percentage had dropped to under eight per cent. For the middle classes, the decline of domestic servants was aided by the rise of domestic appliances, such as cookers, electric irons and vacuum cleaners. The popularity of 'labour-saving devices' does not, however, explain the dramatic drop in the servant population. Middle-class women continued to clamour for servants, but working women who might previously have been enticed into service were being drawn away by alternative employment opening up to satisfy the demands of war. Therefore, nearly half of the first recruits to the London General Omnibus Company in 1916 were former domestic servants. The advantages of these alternative employments over domestic service were obvious: wages were higher, conditions better, and independence enhanced.
Women's role during the war changed the lives of women today because of the right to make careers, join the politics and vote.
By Sarah Mcentee 10e
