Women's contribution to the war

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Q. Did women’s contribution to the war during 1939-1945 have a greater long term impact than 1914-18?

        Women’s contributions to the war in 1939-1945 had a greater long term impact than in 1914-1918.  Many of the Acts created in WWII are still in place today and it is thought that WWI laid the foundations for women and helped to build their confidence.  However, it was WWII that put everything women had previously learned into practice.  From taking on men’s jobs, fighting for the vote and introducing several parties it is evident that women and society have come a long way and have continued to progress after 1945.

        Before WWI women were never considered to be worthy of any jobs apart from being domestic servants.  These jobs involved cleaning, cooking and other household duties. Domestic servants had no trade union, they took little part in class or political struggles and performed services which had no exchange value.  This demonstrates of how little importance women were considered to be.  Women were not authorized to go to work and undertake what was seen to be a ‘man’s job’, such as tram driving or machinery work.  However, WWI helped women to realise their own potential.  For the first time they obtained work.  Through this many women discovered they were as capable as men in handling skilled trades, selling products to clients and for the first time being able to support themselves and their family.  Near the end of WWI the majority of women had high hopes for the future.  Nevertheless, although they thought they had managed to secure themselves with a comfortable job and income, working on the trams and in the factories things drastically changed.  As soon as men returned from the war, women were forced aside.  Perhaps if a substantial amount of women had protested, a social revolution could have occurred and women could have secured occupational work earlier.  Even so, Ray Strachey expresses how women were scrutinized for seeking job security “if women went on working it was from a sort of deliberate wickedness” (N. A. Ferguson. (1975) pg 57 ).   Strachey is completely against women’s strive for work.  He is naive about women’s expectations from the war in not realising that all women had ever aimed to achieve and desired could be lost forever.  Nevertheless, there was a scarce amount of positive results from WWI.  In 1918 women saw a major breakthrough, as all women over thirty were awarded the vote.  This was a huge achievement and women everywhere were ecstatic as nothing like this had ever been accomplished before.   Although women’s progress was slow they were definitely moving in the right direction.  By 1929 there was another immense achievement as all women over the age of twenty one were granted the vote.  1914-18 proved to be a greatly successful time period for women and it could be said that it laid the foundations for women in the future. Although there were some flaws during this time period, women definitely made a difference for themselves.

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        1939-45 made major life changing impacts on women in the war as it provided them with another opportunity to embrace and attain work in comparison to the anti-climax of WWI.  By the 1930s  the percentage of women in the labour force was drastically increasing.  Before, women’s opinions on political issues were formerly disregarded, however, between 1939-45 women had made men take notice of their views.  As the years progressed more actions were modified for the benefit of women in comparison to WWI where women were seen as second best citizens.  Factories authorized two half hour sessions of ‘Music While ...

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