Women stopped their campaigns to help the war effort. The amount of women that worked in industry increased. Because of the war, it was acceptable for women to work in shipyards, collieries and brickyards. Some of them took on highly skilled work as engineers, lathe-operators and carpenters. Later in the war, women made up most of the workforces in government munitions factories.
However, in some jobs, they were resented because they had little or no training and were doing jobs which were previously seen as skilled jobs.
Women gained access to a whole range of jobs that had previously been those of men.
In manufacturing, employers were very reluctant to take on women to fill men’s jobs. They thought that women wouldn’t learn the necessary skills. However, they were proved wrong, which added to some people’s beliefs that women were responsible enough to gain the vote.
In offices, the absence of men didn’t prove to be a problem. Women were soon employed in place of the male clerks who joined up, and by the end of the war, half a million women had replaced the men’s jobs in the office.
As the war took it’s toll on the male population, more and more women stepped in to fill the gaps. It was a kind of revolution, and this proved their responsibilty and equality to men.
At this point in time, the morale of women would have been quite high because they had a lot going for them and they wanted to prove to everyone that they were capable of being independent, and this could make people think that if they had the ability to work in these different fields without much experience, then they would have the ablility to vote sensibly.
I think that most women finally won the vote in 1918 because in 1915, the government realised that there was a problem. The old voting system demanded that voters live in the same place for the 12 months before an election. So women thought that if there were to be an election during the war, most soldiers would not be able to vote. The government then decided to change the law and make sure the ‘war heros’ got their vote. This is when women’s groups saw their opportunity and began to put pressure on the government to inclue votes for women in the new law. Women had already shown themselves to be capable and responsible under the strains of war. By 1916, women were even serving in the armed forces. No one could stop them now, as their argument was so strong.
Finally, The House of Commons passed the Representation of the People Act in 1917 by a majority vote of seven to one. It then became law in 1918 and as a result of the Act, all males aged over 21 gained the right to vote and women over the age of 30 and women over 21 who were also householders or married to householders gained the vote too. This totalled to about 9 million women.
So I think that the fact that they won the vote had a lot to do with their contributions to the war effort. It proved to everyone how capable they were to give help where it was needed, and so people thought that they must be capable enough to vote too.
