 |
Walking
with Ghosts, - The Role of Women in War |
|
||||||
|
||||||||
| Select a thumbnail image for a new window to open, in which you can find out further information on some of the roles of women in war, and some of the individual women themselves. | ||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||
Nursing |
Munitions Workers |
Police Volunteers |
Transport |
Women in the Forces |
||||
The Victorian stereotype of women changed for all time with the onset of the Great War. Until the outbreak of war it had been accepted that the role of a woman was to remain in the home caring for her husband and children. There had been individuals who had challenged this role but they were few and far between and often from privileged families such as that of Florence Nightingale. Now the country needed a female workforce to cover for the men who had been called to the front to fight and the government propaganda machine swung into operation. To make the jobs such as engineering acceptable to women the message was put across that, although this work was necessary for the war effort they, the women, would return to their more acceptable roles once the conflict was over. In reality many working class women had been forced to adopt the role of both mother and mill or factory worker for many years in order to make ends meet and in 1910 women made up one third of the workforce although their work was often temporary or part-time. Suddenly a woman was offered new opportunities; travel, independence, the opportunity to mix with classes other than one’s own. The chance for the first time to manage, lead and organise. With this emancipation women began to behave differently and it became acceptable to do things that would have been unacceptable in peacetime. Many working class and lower middle class women went to work in industry. Middle and upper class women, - the only class where a woman was likely to have learned to drive, became VAD nurses, ambulance drivers, or joined the Women's Land Army. For many working class women life was extremely hard, having to manage a home, a job and struggle alone with the constant threat of their husband being killed in the conflict. In July 1914, a total of 3,224,600 women were employed. By January 1918 this figure had increased to 4,814,600. 250,000 women were employed on the land, 200,000 as clerical workers in government departments and some doing extremely heavy work in areas like shipbuilding. |
 |
|
 |
||
Nurse Edith Cavell |
||
 |
||
Mary Devas Marshall |
||
 |
||
Flora Sandes |
||
--------------> Return to Top of the Page