The Different Roles of Women in WW1

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Women in industry

  1. What was the position of women before the war?

Upper-class women did not work before the war and few worked after it. Working-class women, on the other hand, had to work to help keep their families. They worked before the war mostly in factories and in domestic services as maids. As many as 11% of all women worked as domestic servants before the war. The war gave them the chance to work in a greater variety of jobs but most of these new jobs were lost at the end of the war.
Fewer married women of all classes worked. In some cases, like teaching, they had to give up their jobs once they got married. But more working-class married women worked than women from other classes. In some parts of the country and in some occupations, such as the Lancashire textile mills, they were expected to carry on working after they married.

  1. Why were women workers needed in the war?

Women were needed to fill the vacant jobs left by men who had gone to fight.

  1. What was the government’s attitude to female employment at first?

When war first broke out the government was reluctant to allow women to do any of the jobs left vacant by the men who had gone to fight.

  1. How did some women try to force to government to employ more women?

Emmeline Pankhurst, a leading suffragette, campaigned vigorously with one of her daughters, Christabel, to have women more involved in the war effort. The Pankhursts organised “The Right to Serve” procession in 1915 in which 60,000 women took part. The government was soon forced to change its mind and allow women into industry and other traditionally “male” jobs. It was the only way to keep up production.

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  1. What was the scale of female wartime employment in the munitions industry?

The number of women involved in the munitions industry increased from 200,000 in 1914 to 900,000 in 1918.

  1. What other jobs did women do on the home front?

Women filled all sort of jobs –many of the dangerous. They worked in the shipyards and drove trams, buses and ambulances. 48,000 worked as labourers on the land in the Women’s Land Army. These jobs proved women had the stamina and the skill to cope with tasks which people had thought only men could do. Farm work, ...

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