A wider range of jobs became available to them, they gained more independence and weren’t viewed as second citizens but most importantly, World War One lead to women in Britain gaining the vote. Before the First World War, The majority of women stayed at home and their priorities were looking after the family and the house. Women were seen as the property of their husband. The variety of women’s jobs was very narrow and most women had never had a proper job in their lives. During the war, asso many men were involved in fighting, countless women had a job whether it was working in a munition factory, driving an ambulance or working for the transport of London.
Almost all jobs men did before they left to fight in the war were now a women’s job. All these jobs were a drastic change from their usual routine of cooking, cleaning and being “baby makers”, though women still got paid less than half of what men were getting paid doing these jobs. Women all across Canada started to realize that there might be something more for them in their future. Since women were doing so much for the war effort, they wanted a share in making decisions about their country. This is when women first began to work for political equality with men.
Using my own research i will discover whether the World War One had a positive effect on the role of women. After the immediate rise in female unemployment at the beginning of the war due to the ‘middle-classes wish to economise’ (first world war, accessed 07/01/09), the only option to replace the volunteers gone to front was to employ women in the jobs they had left behind. This was supported by all the major feminist groups, who suddenly ‘became avid patriots and organisers of the women in support of the war effort’ (war and gender, accessed 22/01/09). Overall women’s employment increased from ‘three million in 1914 to five million in 1918’ (Murphy, p373, 2000). For many of the women the war was ‘a genuinely liberating experience’ (first world war, accessed 07/01/09), and made the women feel useful as citizens.
1 Women’s lives after the two world wars changed, but there is some debate as to how much it changed. Their lives changed politically, with women gaining the vote, they changed in terms of employment, as they were now permitted to join certain professions and they also changed socially as a better way of living was set out for them. It is argued that women were given greater opportunities after the wars due to their exceptional participation on the home front. However, many historians believe that this change in women’s lives was simply due to the changing times and the progression in society. The historical debate surrounding this topic is wether women’s lives really did change greatly after the two world wars, or wether their lives simply went back to the way they were before the war started.
Without the changing role of women, things that we have in everyday life as American’s could possibly not exist. Women not only were more help to the family, but they were helping rebuild the nation. As a whole, women helped clean up the process of urbanization and immigration, helped literature grow, and helped change the ongoing problem of women’s suffrage. After the Civil War, many people from other countries started immigrating to America. As a result, urbanization quickly started going out of control due to lack of communication, too many people being forced into slums, and many other reasons.
After all, in countries such as New Zealand (1893), Australia (1901), Finland (1906) or Norway (1913) women got the vote before the war began, whereas others such as Denmark (1915), Iceland (1915), Holland (1917) or Sweden (1919) gave it to women during the war without being involved in it. (http://www.firstworldwar.com/features/womenww1_three.htm) Women did make steps when it came to labor, but many women also looked down on the working class feminists. They thought it was unnecessary, and women should have their own place in the home
Ife Otukoya Period 5 Women in the Civil War: Positive or Negative A lot of historians would say that the Civil War took a negative toll on the country, but I say that it was positive. I say it’s positive because first, slaves were allowed to vote, and women’s rights were extended. They were able to take on the jobs and responsibilities once thought to be a man’s. In the present day women are out numbering men in the nursing profession. Before the civil war it was mostly men who were nurses, but since a lot of them went to war, the ladies took on the job.
Before 1914, only a few countries had given the right to vote to women, and apart from these countries women were little involved in the political process. More than any previous wars, World Wars I hinged as much on industrial production as it did on battlefield clashes. With millions of men away fighting and with the inevitable horrendous casualties, there was a severe shortage of labor in a range of industries, from rural and farm work to city office jobs. During World War I, women were called on, by necessity, to do work and to take on roles that were outside their traditional gender expectations. Women took on jobs that were traditionally regarded as skilled men's work.
The closure of WW1 marked a significant period in women’s history. The franchise was extended to women over 30 in 1918, enabling them to vote in national elections. However, this was less than the ‘universal adult suffrage’ they had sought, and even by 1918, it would take a further decade to achieve this. The key debate over this achievement, however, is over the contribution of peaceful tactics. Even before the creation of a specific national suffrage movement, certain rights had already been gained by women.
Name: Alan Morris how the lives of women changed? History Controlled assessment The lives of women before World War 1 was bad and unfair, the fashion of the women’s has made them restricted, there is part of the dress called corsets (which is around their stomach and pelvis) and the corsets had made lots of problems during the pregnancy, ¼ of women has died, because of the corsets, it squeezes the stomach and its harder to press during the birth. Before 1914 women’s weren’t allowed to vote and there was a group called the Suffragettes who always stand up for women’s right and the leader of the group was called Pankhurst, what they do is suicide front of the king's horse, break the windows and campaign for women’s right. Women were paid less than men because the government believes that men’s are stronger than the women’s and if they were married women they cannot work in the industry, but if it’s a poor family the only could work in Domestic Service in order to run the family and The women was always been dominated by the men and were beaten and the main job for the women was to look after the children. In response to women’s contribution in WW1 Women gained the right to vote.