As well as not having much of a social life, women did not have as many political rights as men. By 1884 all men over the age of 21 were allowed to vote; men thought it would be a bad idea to let women have the vote because it would cause a great change in politics, and men thought that women would not be able to vote intelligently because they knew nothing about politics. “In 1987 the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies was founded to campaign peacefully for the right of women to vote”; this led to the making of the suffragettes in 1903. The suffragettes tried much harder and were much more forceful with their actions. This was an act which involved mainly middle and upper-class women, as working-class women were busy working and did not have time for campaigning. By 1914 women still did not have the right to vote, as men were firmly against giving them the vote, but changes were to be made during and after the war. However, there were many rights which women had gained before 1914 which brought them closer to being equal to men, some examples of these are the Elementary Education Act in which women could vote for, and serve on, the new school boards; women being allowed to keep property acquired before marriage and a law stating that men could not force their wives to live in the matrimonial home.
As men started going to war the government needed to bring in women to fill in doing work that the men did; these were jobs which were previously thought of as being unsuitable for women. During the war the women were less thought of as homemakers and child bearers, but now played an important role in producing for the war. At the start of the war things were slow to change for women; the number of women employed in munitions rose from 212,000 to only 256,000 between 1914 and 1915. The pace of change began to increase, though, because by July of 1916 this number rose to 520,000. Women received a huge pay increase relative to what they were paid before the war; this was a reason why so many women went to work in industries and left domestic services behind. The war sped up the rate of change for middle and upper-class women. Women had a huge variety of jobs to choose from during the war, middle and upper-class women would get the cleaner jobs, in nursing, transport and offices; the working-class women were stuck with the dirtier jobs, such as in munitions factories. There was a huge increase in the amount of women involved in banking and commerce and women were even becoming doctors which is probably the first time they would ever have had to do hard work. Having jobs was a huge change for the middle and upper-class women, but less so for the working-class women because the majority of them had jobs before the war. The biggest change in work from before the war was the rise in pay.
Women’s social lives became much more relaxed during the war; they could behave and dress more freely. Skirts and dresses had become shorter; clothes had become lighter and more revealing and women started to wear cosmetics when they went out. Women could go out almost whenever they wanted and did not need a male chaperone, as most men had gone to war. Working-class women smoked and drank before the war but now they could do it much more freely, without it being frowned upon; this was not such a big change for the working-class but this was a huge difference, to before the war, for middle and upper-class women as they were seldom allowed to even go out before the war.
War also brought about a big change in politics for women. One major change was the introduction of the vote, in 1918, for women over 30 who were householders or married to householders, although a big improvement, only half of women qualified. The suffragettes decided to suspend their campaign for a while and tried to get more women involved in war work; this campaign involved 60,000 women. The first woman MP was introduced in 1918, this was also a huge step for politics for women.
In general, working-class women had not seen as huge a change as middle and upper-class women as much of the work they did during the war was similar to work they did before the war. Middle and upper-class women were more greatly affected as they gained more rights and got good jobs that they did not have the chance of getting before the war.
After the war, when all the men returned, women were forces to give their jobs back to them and working-class women were thrown back into working in domestic services and as servants – a job now seen as very low status. Women now had a different view and believed they should be allowed jobs similar to the jobs they had during the war. Middle-class women saw less change then working-class women; but they had a whole range of new opportunities, for example, in offices and light industry, which was a big change for them, but things were more difficult for them if they were married. Upper-class women saw the least change of all the classes; they were expected to drop everything and go back to how they were before the war, running the home and caring for the family. However, they had a hugely changed attitude towards work and life and this is an attitude they would pass onto their daughters which would be evident in the next generation.
The relaxed social life of women was a permanent change, continuing after the war and throughout the 1920s. Shorter skirts and dresses became the trend and comfort became more important than anything else; women went out as much as they pleased and were allowed to smoke and wear makeup in public without worrying about what people thought of them. The idea of only going out with a male chaperone had now disappeared, also. The lack of money for working-class women meant that the changed for them were limited; they could not afford to go out all the time, wearing fashionable clothes and accessories. Middle-class women saw a huge improvement to their life before the war, especially single women, as they were allowed to go out alone and had the money to buy cosmetics and new clothes. Upper-class saw quite a small change because when their husbands came back the husbands had the same attitude they had before the war, limiting the women.
Women’s politics saw enormous changes; after the introduction of the vote things continued to improve. In 1919 an act was introduces which stated that married women would not be prevented from getting jobs, and the Property Acts in 1923 and 1925 allowed women to hold and dispose of property on the same terms as their husbands. Finally, in 1928 the vote was given to all women over the age of 21. Although, politically, things were slow to change for women at first all these events show just how far women had come, throughout and after the war, in gaining equal rights to men.
Overall, womens’ lives were changed in every way as a result of the First World War. The war increased the amount of women and the range of jobsthey were able to do, and changed their attitudes towards work forever. The social expectations of women were completely different after the war; they could wear virtually anything they wanted, go out whenever they wanted and were generally more free. Finally, the war made women more equal to men than ever before, in terms of political rights. Many changes were permanent and continued to improve and it is evident that World War One brought women higher in society and completely changed their lives.