Women In Britain In 1914

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Samuel Waigwa

                                             

              Women In Britain In 1914              

                                                                 

Samuel Waigwa

  1. Describe the employment opportunities of women in Britain in 1914 at the outbreak of war

During the outbreak of the First World War, approximately 5.9 million women were working

in Britain out of a total female population of 23.7 million. The most common jobs were in domestic service and approximately 1.5 million women working as domestic servants. In textiles about 900.000 women were working and another 500.000 in the sweated trades. Theses jobs involved low pay and extreme hours of work and women earned less money than men and were rarely promoted above men.

Domestic services were jobs that involved women working in houses as cleaners, cooks, or chambermaids. Where they could earn £5 or £10 per year, and they often got one half day a week or sometimes a month off. Servants who lived out in their own homes were better paid.

The school leaving age was twelve; so many young women worked in services. The payment would be low because many girls were looking for work, which was a job that did not require a high level of education.

Jobs like textile industry was a major employer of women, as it had been since the industrial Revolution. It was a place where uneducated, working class women. These jobs were physically demanding, “Being in a mill was like being in a prison, and it had the further disadvantages that it felt as if one was being slowly melted away”. Even if men and women did the same job, the women received less than men. To me this sounds like sexism because women are treated like weak people.

A large number of women were employed in the sweated trade, probably as many as 950.000. The sweated industries were jobs like dressmaking and clothing. If women worked at home which meant they were paid for every piece they made and if they worked at the home of the manufacturer’s, the pay was very low. The conditions in the sweated trade were dreadful.

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In those times, women wanted to play a more active role in the war effort. A group which was led by Dr Elise Ingis, volunteered to go to France and work as nurses, but the war office had an answer to that “my good lady go home and sit still”. This meant to Elise, to go home and set up her own organisation, the Scottish Women’s hospital. According to the war office speech women were treated like housemaids.

A comparable negative response was given to members of the first aid nursing yeomanry, which had been set up in 1907. They ...

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