There were several changes caused by the First World War. The changes in Society and law improved the health and education for women. Women have fewer kids and the size of the families dropped as result. This also made better health because less risk of dying in childbirth. Before the war, the education for women was not good. The more men went to university than the women did. Women were not allowed to study all the subjects especially, science. They were expected to learn subjects like languages, cooking and sewing. As long as they were not only to learn science, they couldn’t get into jobs such as engineering, medicine and architecture but during the First World War, they started to get equal chance with men. The women begun to go to medical university and later on the women got better results in education than men.
Source 6 was written by Mrs H.A. Felstead, to the imperial war museum on January 1976. Although it was written years after the WW1, I think this source tells me about the obvious changes about the role of the women in WW1. She said” I was in a domestic service and hated every minutes of it when the war broke out, earning £2 pounds a month working from 6am to 9 pm” This tells me that she disliked domestic service because they worked for 15 hours and got only £2 a month for doing it. So, it was less paid and hard work for her. Although she knew that these jobs were dangerous, she still had to do it as she needed money. Almost 300 women were killed by explosions and some died from poisoning. Some women hair and skin turned yellow as they have to work with poisonous chemicals. Then during the war, she quit from that job and started working on hand-cutting shell fuses. She worked twelve hours a day and earned £5 a week. What she wants to tell is before the war women had long hours with poor earning. During the war it was still quite long hours and poor work conditions but there was a lot more money. As this is a letter to a museum, this source is quite reliable. However, this was just her opinion. She though she wasn’t earning enough money but compare to the other jobless women or women working in the domestic service I think her income was good enough.
Women earned more money and enjoyed more freedom during the WW1. Before the war, women had no freedom. They were not allowed to smoke, drink or go out with men. But during and after the war, they became more fashionable and freer. They also got good paid jobs. They wore shorter skirts, trousers and had their hair short cut. Single women were able to socialise, including drinking and smoking. Source 7 and 10 mentioned this. Source 7 is quoted by Rifleman H.V. Shawyer in a book, Voices and images of the Great War. In this source, he tells about his experience with a factory girl in a pub who paid a drink for him. In this source, he used words like “good company” to tell that the girls enjoyed themselves. This also means that the factory girls can spend money for what they want. This was written in 1990 therefore, it is a secondary source but as it was a quote from a book of rifleman, we can know that it is based on primary source. He would have no reason to lie. So, I think this source is reliable about telling the changes lives of women. Source10 is a photograph showing young women smoking and drinking in a restaurant in 1920, after the war. There on the table is a sign requesting not to smoke but the women were smoking. I think this source is not reliable because it is a photograph taken by unknown person and at unknown place. This might be taken with purpose to show that women were changing a lot. Photographs are always limited. We can never trust the photographs.
I think source 10 appears to be a fairly reliable source. It is a speech of H.Asquith, former British PM, speaking to a public audience in 1917, which tells me that it is a primary source. Before the war he was opposed to votes for women but he changed his views about the right of women to vote just after the war. I think this is because he realised that women will be given vote and if that happened, he didn’t want to get blamed for being opposed it. He said “I used the expression ‘Let the women work out their salvation’. Well they have work....................I would find it impossible to oppose them getting the vote”. Basically, what he trying to do was letting the people know about his changed view possibly with a thought on his political future.
Women also faced with some problems as a result of changes happened to them during the World War 1. The jobs the women had to do were very dangerous like painting aircraft wings. Sylvia Pankhurst wrote about this in Source 11. Source 11 is a part from a history book written by Sylvia Pankhurst in 1932. This is a primary source about the poor working conditions for women. In this source, she pointed out the point that the women had to work for long hours and paid less. She wrote that “for six or more of the 30 women dope painters to be lying ill on the stones outside the workshop” This shows that women worked in poor working condition to help win the war. However, this source cannot be reliable because Sylvia Pankhurst was a suffragette so, this source could be possibly bias. Also, the purpose of this source is to inform and make money.
Source 12 is an experience of Dorothy Polle during WW1. It was written in 1919. This source is about the selfish men who treated badly to her at work only because she was the woman working to help win the war. Whenever she asked for help, those men played tricks on her and always gave her problems like nailing up her drawer, pouring oil over everything in it. This source can be reliable as it was written by a woman who worked during the war. However, it can be unreliable too because as it was for a local newspaper, it could possibly be exaggeration edited.
Source 14 links back to sources 6, 5, 3 and 1 concerning with Domestic service. It tells me that the girls were forced to work in domestic services. This source was written by Josh Brooman in 1994. It is a secondary source aimed at 14 or 16 years old students. It was written to entertain and educate the children. I think this source is reliable because he had researched information from primary sources to add into the text book which could give him the benefit of hindsight. Source 15, a primary source was written by unknown author in the popular magazine “Live Wire” in 1920. This is a comment on women about taking the places of men in works. This unknown author wanted the women to give up their jobs for the men who had came back from fighting. But the women wanted to keep their jobs. They undertook the jobs which had been for the men. I think this source cannot be a reliable source because the author was unknown and as it was published in popular magazine, it will only to entertain people to get money.
At the end of the World War 1, the lives of women were changed in British society. Despite the fact that their lower position improved, they didn’t get the chance to achieve equality with the men. The reason is only women over 30 got the vote when the vote was given to men over 21. This upset the women between eighteen and thirty and as I have mentioned before, some women were forced to go back to their old jobs when the men were back. They were not prepared to have their freedom taken back from them.
Overall, the lives of women were changed a lot as a result of WW1. Their lives were not only housewives and mother anymore. They got more freedom and money. They can go out whenever they wanted and wear anything they wanted. Moreover, the war made the women more equal to men than before in some places. Many changes continued to improve till now. Finally, the lives of women on the home front were well affected by the First World War.
