The Changing Employment Opportunities of Women During the First World War in Britain

The Changing Employment Opportunities of Women During the First World War in Britain

The First World War ended on the 11th of November 1918. Four million

British servicemen got ready to return to their homes and jobs. Women

had been allowed to take over skilled industrial jobs normally done by

men as long as the war lasted. Now that the war was over, they were

expected to give up their jobs to the returning servicemen. Even in

the factories that had had existed before the war, many women were

pressured into handing in their notice within months of the end of the

war; hundreds of thousands of women were out of work.

Many of these women did not want to go back to their traditional

'women's work' when they lost their jobs. Domestic service especially

unpopular women were willing any job then domestic service and some

women stayed on the dole rather then go on domestic service. These

women faced a lot of criticism. Many newspapers mounted a campaign

against these women. Women who only a few months before were called

'gallant girls' and 'heroines' for contributing a great deal in the

war were now called, 'scavengers' and 'pin money girls'. The

government reduced unemployment benefits to force women back into

domestic work.

Traditional attitudes to women still persisted within male-dominated

post war British society, for example women were still considered to

lack the flexibility for employment in the civil service and on

marrying female nurses, were still expected to retire from the

profession. The trades union responded by enlisting that women

employed on men's jobs be granted equal pay and this was agreed to by

the governmen...

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... to pensions.

Many people thought that the war had brought about a revolution in

women's lives. Financially they were better off and socially they were

free. During the war women had got used to things they had been

frowned upon before, such as smoking, going out alone, and wearing

short shirts. Politically their positions improved and many people in

1920 were talking about the 'new woman'. The war had really changed

the job opportunities for women. It not only revolutionized the

industrial positions of woman, but also revolutionized men's minds and

conceptions of the start of work, which the ordinary everyday women

could not do. The war had changed lives for women everywhere. By 1920,

woman had made an important progress towards legal, social and

professional equality and for the first time women had tasted freedom.