How useful are these two sources as evidence for the contribution of women to the war

effort in the years 1914-1918?

The contribution of women was a major factor in the war as it might have been the reason why the war was won as women supported the nation in the absence of men even though they were discriminated showing that they were patriotic n wanted to prove themselves of being worthy of the Suffrage.

Source F is a propaganda poster used to enrol more women into work as there was shortage of labour as conscription led most men away to fight for the country. The poster was produced in 1916 during the First World War and The Battle of the Somme which meant that to fight in the war men needed ammunition and therefore many women were being asked to help in industries to help men and the nation. During the war there was a shortage of shells and that was 1 of the things that women were made to produce bombs. The conditions for women at work were very bad as they were paid less than what men would receive which displayed the sexist attitude of that time. They had to do work in dangerous conditions, working with TNT explosives, which could turn their skin yellow and when this happened to a women working in a factories they called a canary. The source shows a middle class women getting ready to work whilst in the background the man is preparing to fight in the front line, the contrast between the images shows that how they are interlinked with their work as now women are helping the men who were quite sexist towards them and did not want the progress of women in society.

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Although the source does not suggest any of this, and the source is a biased and is produced to just make women take the roles of men as there was a shortage of labour to produce resources for the war and the source doesn’t show how many women actually ended up working and how they were treated and how their lives were when the voting rights campaign stopped and the war begun. The fact that the woman is shown in the foreground and the man is shown at the back, tells us that the poster is a juxtapose. This source is useful because it shows us that the governments changed their views about women and were willing to bring women into the work industries and trusted them to handle a highly skilled job which was not the same attitude they had at the beginning of the war. Although it is clear that this change of attitude was because of desperation not of good heart as they said ‘Enrol At Once’ showing that they were in need of help from women as they were left with no other choice and ‘at once’ suggests that it was needed urgently otherwise it is likely that the war would have been lost and more men would have died as the nation would have had to surrender. Source F is quite limited as it is one sided is only focused on convincing women not of what they did as it is a source at the time of the conscription of men.

Source G is a data table showing the number of employed women in key industries from 1914 to 1918. The overall trend suggested by the data is that there was a definite increase in the employment figures although the source fails to explain why exactly there was an increase. The major increase took place in the Metal industry and government offices because of the metal resource heavily needed to produce weapons, armor, vehicles etc. The government office increase was mainly because those jobs were still needed even if the war was ongoing and because of conscription more women began working in the government. However Source G is quite in accurate as it was published years after the war and the figures are rounded and estimated so it means that it isn’t a true representation of the employment figures during the war. The data taken is also in a 4 year gap which is too far apart and does not give enough evidence to suggest when and why exactly did the employment of women increase because during the 4 years the figures could have increased and decreased. Although it does show that there was a mass increase in employment for women so it does provide evidence to back that the war gave women more jobs and that women replaced the roles of men during the war. Source F fails to provide enough detail in the data to be strong evidence of the work that women did during the war although it is reliable as it is data and factual therefore there are no arguments against it. Source G is also very limited and only shows data between a 4 year gap and from only 4 different industries as it does not mention the other jobs that women did which could possibly mean that the source is produced to only show the positive increases in employment.

Overall I think both sources together prove the contribution of women in the war as very positive and source F shows how women were asked to work but it did not show if they actually did whereas Source G clearly shows that there is a clear increase in employment during the war. Source F is biased and is not strong enough evidence to show the contribution of women in the war and is used to portray women as respectable and leaders and the real heroes of the country to try and convince women to join up and work. Although Source G is limited it gives a good idea of the work that women did and why.

Karan Patel 10R