But still, even though the women put in the hard effort in producing all the goods for Britain and the war, sometimes they were hardly paid a respectable wage. Sylvia Pankhurst wrote “The women were painting aeroplane wings from 8 am to 6:30 pm. They were frequently expected to work on till 8pm and were paid only bare time rates for this overtime…. It was common they told me, for many dope painters to be lying ill for half an hour or more, before they could return back to their work.” Women also had to work in poor conditions where many women would fall ill because of the horrid atmosphere. This just shows how women were still continued to be treated unfairly. They were always expected to do more than they had agreed to do. However the hard effort that these women continued to put into working got its recognition. A doctor of a government munitions factory in Scotland wrote “There is no industrial work harder than domestic service. So women should not be prevented from doing any work they are fit for...” This shows how many men were becoming in favour of women working as they began to realise that women were actually fit enough to do men’s work. A minister of munitions even said “Women have proved themselves able to undertake work that before the War was regarded as solely the province of men…” This shows that the effort that women put into working during the war helped gain support from the public and men change their minds about the negative viewpoint of women. It also helped them gain the vote, as they played a vital role for their country during the war producing munitions and other goods while many men went out to fight for their country.
However, on the other hand, the war work wasn’t the only factor that gained women the vote, as there were many social and political reasons behind their success. First of all the old voting system in Britain required that for a person to vote they had to stay in the same place for twelve months before the election. Now this was a problem for the soldiers that went out to war. They would not be able to vote. So the government decided to change the system. This new law made sure that the war heroes would be able to get their vote. This gave the chance for the women to step in and ask to be added to the new law. In addition during the war there were many changes in Parliament, which changed the stability of MPs who opposed and supported women’s suffrage. A number of suffragist MPs were promoted into the cabinet. What’s more in December 1916 Lloyd George who was supportive of the women’s suffrage replaced Asquith as prime minister who opposed them. This gave a greater chance of women gaining their right for vote. This shows that the war was not the only reason why women gained their vote because during the war many great changes were made which improved the chances of women gaining the vote.
Moreover if Asquith did not come down as Priminister during the war, he still would not have given the vote to women, as after the war in 1920 Asquith still opposed women’s suffrage as he said “a dim lot, for the most partly hopelessly ignorant of politics.” This shows that if Asquith stayed as Prime Minister he would not have given women the vote even after women’s contribution to the War. So the war wasn’t the only factor that helped women over 30 gain the vote. What's more since Britain was a democratic country and in order to complete the full democracy they had to fit in with the trend, which many countries all over the world had already, been enfranchised, like New Zealand, Australia, Finland, Denmark and Norway. It would be very embarrassing if Britain the heart of all democracy lingered behind.
Moreover Britain only gave women over 30 the vote. Politicians knew most women over 30 were married, so they were more likely to vote for the person their husbands voted, as they would be middle class women who didn’t work during the war. It was the working class women mostly had worked and some middle class women who were under the age of 30 had worked. More to the point the politicians were worried that if they didn’t give women the vote then the suffragettes would probably become violent again and nobody wanted that. But besides all that the suffragists’ peaceful protest and use of propaganda before the war and before the campaign of the suffragettes’ violent methods, they had already helped raise the importance of the vote for women. Any way without the suffragists the suffragettes wouldn’t have started their campaign and in 1918 women wouldn’t have gained the vote. The Guardian newspaper commented on Mrs. Fawcett’s contribution "…without the faithful preparation of the ground over many years by dame Millicent Fawcett and her colleagues, neither militancy (the suffragettes) nor the war could have produced the crop."
The war also helped women not only raise their status and change many negative viewpoints from the public and men, but it also helped women learn to become a more financially able person. It helped women become more independent and learn to stand on their own two feet, than rely on their husband to bring in the money. The war work also helped women gain new skills and open new doors for them. It showed a different and wider world to them, giving them more opportunities in life and an experience that they could never forget. The war work also helped women to gain self – confidence and also become independent economic wise. The effort women put into working during the war helped gain some sort of equality in both genders, it helped them gain respect from men, as women proved to the British society and themselves that they were worth something because they could do the same work as men did. The war also changed politicians’ views about women, it helped them to realise that they should give women the vote, as it would be a shame not to, when they had played such an important role during the war.
I disagree with the statement above, as weighing up both sides of the argument, I would say that the war did not exactly help gain women over 30 the vote in 1918, but instead it helped raise the status of women in society, by changing negative views of the public and especially men about women. I think that the most important factor that helped gain women over 30 the vote was the fact that Britain was a democratic country who needed to give women the vote or else she would be laughed and so politicians gave the vote only to women over 30 as they thought cleverly, that since most women over 30 were married, they would vote for the person their husband would and not think for themselves. But most of all the war did not help gain women over 30 the vote in 1918, as they were not the people who had made the contribution to the war, as it was the women under the age of 30.
