Many suffragettes were more than happy to help after Emiline Pankhurst stated: “ What good is having the vote without a country to vote in?”.
The source is limited in its utility for a number of reasons. It does not give us a female perspective on the issue, it does not tell us about the conditions or hours of work and it does not show the male attitude, only that of the governments. The poster only tells us about one form of work offered to women at the time and how many were actually doing it, its opinions are limited because it’s a picture so is only a snapshot of one moment in history. It does not tell us about women working before or after this period.
However, it is also useful because it shows a change in attitude of the government and government policy as it is government propaganda and it tells us about the munitions industry.
Source G shows statistics form a school textbook from the 1980s. It shows the number of women in employment in four different industries in Britain in 1914 and in 1918. The purpose of the source is to show us how the number of women employed increased during the war in these industries. The source shows a vast increase in women working in the metal and chemical industries as well as in government offices. Although there was an increase in the number of women employed in the food, drink and tobacco industries it is not as much as the others. A likely reason for this is that it was a typical job for a working woman before the war.
An argument previously used by men as to why women could not vote was that women could not manage politics, however, this source shows an increase in the number of women working in government office, which were classified as men’s roles, from only 2,000 to 224,000 in just four years.
Source G is a reliable and useful source. It is reliable in terms of statistics and shows change. It implies a major contribution of women towards the war effort and that employers recognised that they needed the women to keep the industries going. It shows a prominent increase in the number of women working and shows that women took jobs previously taken by men and, as England won the war they could not be seen as incapable to fill these posts.
Despite this, the source also has many limitations. It does not show us the experiences of the women working. For example conditions, pay and hours. It does not show us the attitudes of men and other non-working women towards those that worked because they are only statistics. It does not put the statistics in context with the number of women not working, or the effect it had on families. Another huge change that would have come about during the war would be the chaperone system. Whereas before it would be disgraceful for a woman to be out on the streets without a chaperone, during the war this just simply wasn’t feasible, however this source does not show this, along with the introduction of women wearing trousers. Another two industries that many women worked in during the war were the medical industry and the driving industry, which are not shown in this source.
In conclusion, although neither source is completely reliable, source G shows a need for women in the munitions industry and a cry for help to them from the government. Source F shows that the poster was successful, along with a huge increase of the number of women in employment by the end of the war. Although source F is government propaganda it makes it very clear that women were encouraged to help with the war effort.