Evaluate the impact of the First World War on the social, economic and political position of women.

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Evaluate the impact of the First World War on the social, economic and political position of women.

Women had many positions to uphold before the First World War, socially, economically and politically

There were many rules that women had to follow. When they went out, whether they were on a date or no, they had to be fully clothed. No part of their body could be seen apart from their face. There was also no make up allowed. If they were out on date, they had to have a chaperone with them at all times to make sure they didn’t get up to anything. This was usually an aunt.

Another social rule women had was that if they went out swimming, their swimming costumes had to cover their arms and legs. Some women even went into the pool in a carriage. Once they were in the pool, only then would they get out to go for a swim. They would do the same when they wanted to get out again.

One of the other stereotypical views of women in the society was that women should stay at home and look after the children. Only some of the working class went out to work. If women did go out to work, then they could only work in certain areas, such as domestic service and domestic system. Statistics of women’s employment in the 1870’s and 1880’s show that 3 million women were working in domestic system and 1.2 million were working in domestic service. 40,000 women worked in agriculture, 292,000 in textile factories and 1.2 million did other work outside the house.

However, they always earnt less than the man did. And whatever they earn was given to the man of the house, so they still didn’t have any freedom, and couldn’t buy anything. So the man owned everything.

In the eyes of the law, women had no rights what so ever. There was a law, which said that women didn’t even have the right to vote. However from the 1850’s, a group was founded, fighting for the suffrage of women. They were called the suffragists (NUWSS). It was a group founded by Millicent Fawcett they used peaceful methods, such as petitions and processions to get their point across. This didn’t really work, as they didn’t really get their point across by 1900.Eventually, some of the members of the group got really fed up, so another group was founded in 1903. This was called the suffragettes (WSPU). It was founded by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters. Their methods were more violent compared to the suffragists. They did things such as, made attacks on properties and carried out arson, bombing, and sabotage. Their other method, which was quite successful, was that women who were with the suffragettes would commit crimes and deliberately get arrested and sent to prison. In prison, they would go on a hunger strike. But they would be force-fed. This was published on posters for the public to be seen before the general election in 1910. This would show that the people in prison were bad because they were force-feeding the prisoners.

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Because of the methods used, both groups had got support from the public and the government. In 19911, the government were going to write a conciliation bill, which would give women the vote. Most people in the government agreed for this to happen.

However, in November 1911, the government changed its mind and wrote the franchise bill instead, which didn’t give women the vote. As a result, the suffragettes increased the amount of violence and they started to get arrested again. Because of this violence, they lost more and more votes. By 1913, there were 48 more people against the ...

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