2 World War I

The outbreak of the first total war in the history of Great Britain (and mankind, one might add) entailed a disruption of normality in every sphere of life. What was considered in the beginning as a short offensive, supporting the French and Belgian allies after the German invasion into Belgium, turned out to be a conflict of unprecedented scale. By the end of the war in 1918, "[...] [t]hree-quarters of a million men from the United Kingdom [...] had died"^[1], and many more came home wounded, maimed, gassed, or shell-shocked. The patriotic enthusiasm that had fuelled the surges of recruits had been buried in the trenches. More than any other armed conflict, the slaughter of men that left so little of Europe unmarked had finally exploded the notion that there is anything heroic about war. Unfortunately, mankind tends to forget this insight over and over again.

On the 'Home Front', normality was equally suspended, at least after the initial estimate that the war would last only from August until Christmas. Commodities such as food and clothing became rationed. Industries changed to war production, and those that were deemed vital to the war effort were placed under a government control that formerly would have been unthinkable in a country dedicated to the idea of Free Trade.

The women's movement at that time consisted of many organisations with a vast range of objectives. The most vociferous, therefore best-known (though not necessarily most successful), was the militant Women's Social and Political Union. Its militarism stood out among the more moderate groups such as the NUWSS (National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies) or the downright conservative Mother's Union.^[2] No matter what their stance towards suffrage and equality between the sexes had been, however, women's organisations yoked themselves onto the war effort. The general sentiment seems to have been that in times of war, the government had more important matter to worry about than women's rights.

The government, on the other hand, welcomed the support; in the 1915 National Registration Bill, women were included as listed workers. In his study of Women and the Women's Movement in Britain 1914-1959, Martin Pugh relates how during the discussion of this bill, some "[...] MPs argued against the inclusion of women [...] on the grounds that as women were not voters they had no obligations to the state, but this was rejected [...]."^[3] The women's movement apparently saluted their inclusion into the registration scheme as "[...] the first Government recognition of the fact that women can render effective aid to their country in wartime."^[4] It was undoubtedly convenient for both sides to convey intensely altruistic motives for their strategies: The government gained resources of womanpower while at the same time showing their concern for women's objectives, and the women's movements gained official recognition for women as capable of full citizenship while at the same time achieving a potential lever for their demands. With a view to the recesses and backlashes the women's movement suffered after the war, the unspoken (and often disclaimed) bargain appears to have been more favourable for the government's side.

The major change that the war effected in the lives of working women as well as middle-class women was that the government and industries required their support in the war effort. With two out of 10.6 million working men enlisted by January 1915, the labour market during the war became needy of anyone who could ensure the smooth running of production, transport, and services, and the only ones left in sufficient numbers to fill the gaps were women. The Treasury Agreement between government and trade unions that allowed unskilled labourers, mostly women, into the skilled jobs formerly held by men opened better-paid jobs in so-called heavy industries, particularly the munitions factories. This agreement later became law as the Munitions of War Act.^[5]

Paradoxically, the first few months of the war brought an actual shortage of work as those industries who traditionally had employed women, such as dressmaking and jewellery, became redundant. Domestic servants, primarily women, were dismissed, so that in September 1914, an estimated 44.4 per cent of all women workers were unemployed. Relief funds were organised; no-one had any idea that within weeks, there would be an actual labour shortage.^[6]

In her study of Women Workers in the First World War, Gail Braybon analyses the way in which women replaced men for the duration of the war. She claims that it is impossible to compare the work done by men before the war directly with the work done by women during the war. 'Substitution' was the catch-phrase of government, trade unions and industries alike, but changes in both the productive processes and the products themselves entailed different jobs, different skills, different machinery and therefore different work descriptions. Women did not replace men, at least not in industrial jobs, they filled the general gap in the labour market and were employed in newly defined areas of industrial labour. Which, incidentally, was a perfect reason for employers to deny women the same wages men would, and did, draw.

According to Braybon, almost all women who became employed in industries open only or predominantly to men before 1914 were recruited from other industrial jobs; they were working-class women who took the chance to earn the higher wages that 'heavy' industries offered. Even though they were still paid less, sometimes not more than half the wages of men, working in a munitions factory (one of the chief wartime industries employing women), in the aircraft industry, or in other parts of the industrial process that were previously performed by men was nonetheless an attractive alternative. Apart from the financial advantages, women gained independence and self-respect in the skilled or semi-skilled trades that were closed to them before the war. Government, industries and trade unions, each for different reasons, were still trying to convey that this was a very temporary emergency solution to the labour shortage caused by mass enlistment. They also alleged that women were less qualified for the jobs they were doing, day-to-day experience in the factories to the contrary, but it seems that their arguments were no longer convincing. True enough, some work, particularly when it involved handling great weights, could not be done by women; most of the work could, however, be adapted to the physical abilities of women, for example by using forklifts. Traditionally, the notion that women could not set and adjust or repair machines or perform other skilled 'male' jobs remained undisputed because women were never permitted to prove otherwise. Wherever women were allowed to acquire the skills and qualifications, there is no evidence whatsoever that they failed.^[7]

Other branches of employment where the war left a hiatus that could be filled by women were transport and clerical work such as banking and accountancy. They were not allowed to hold managing posts, but the sight of women behind bank tellers, women as conductors and drivers, window-cleaners or street-sweepers, even as firewomen^[8], became very familiar between 1914 and 1918. There was a significant increase of women working in all areas of industrial and non-industrial employment with the notable exception of those trades traditionally held by women, namely the textile industries.^[9]

Braybon states that within the working-class, the number of women employed after the beginning of the war compared to the numbers before the war did not increase significantly. According to her study, the new recruits in industry in general and the munitions industry in particular "[...] was accounted for by the transference of women from slack to busy trades, the return of married women, the movement of workers from low-paid industries, the entrance of some older women or girls straight from school, and a very few middle- or upper-class women [...]."^[10] It is important to note that the transference of women into the better-paid industrial jobs, alongside the decline of traditionally female work such as dressmaking, was one of the most consequential changes that the war brought about. For a brief time of almost four years, women were not considered as secondary workers substituting their husbands' income (this notion being rather outdated to begin with as women more often than not supported the whole family with their wages) but as vital pillars of industrial production. The demand for workers was such that government, in words and deeds, and the industries, in deeds only, had to acknowledge the importance of working women.

Middle- and upper-class women, on the other hand, were predominantly new to the trades they occupied. From the 1870's onward, women had been reluctantly allowed into some professions such as medicine, and the reforms in education implemented during the last decades of Victoria's reign had opened secondary schools, tertiary colleges and universities to women students. Nonetheless, they had been exceptions rather than the rule. Now these women were needed in offices and banks, and not just as typists or telephone operators, but as tellers and civil servants. The number of women employed in non-industrial jobs doubled from 1.1 million in 1914 to 2.19 million in 1918. By 1918, there were almost as many women in professional occupations (119,500) as there had been men in professions (127,000) in 1914.^[11]

The impact of the First World War affected working-class and middle-class women differently. For working-class women, industrial labour had always been normal, though it was considered to be a transitional phase before marriage. For them, the important changes were the improvements of working conditions and the employment available. Even though they still earned less than a man doing a comparable job, wages were higher, and the situation of the workplace more comfortable; it was, after all, better to handle TNT while sitting down for a limited number of hours than to serve at all times of the day in someone else's house. As industry by necessity adapted to them, washrooms and crèches were provided, and the machinery became more manageable to accommodate the physical abilities of women.

The majority of middle-class women, particularly those from the upper middle-class, were traditionally not expected to seek employment; to them, entering the work force was an excursion into unknown territory. Many

"[...] entered occupations which they would have never dreamt of pursuing in normal circumstances, [and] some were encouraged to seek a long-term career. Their families increasingly accepted the desirability, or even necessity, of their finding some means of supporting themselves after the war, fearful, perhaps, of a dearth of marriage partners [...]."^[12]

No matter what the families' reasons might have been, the predominantly young women who were called to work in order to support the war effort seemed to have enjoyed the experience. They achieved both economic autonomy and social independence, and despite the backlash that occurred even before the end of the war, when female clerical staff was reduced, "[...] middle-class women were apt to regard the emancipation of their sex as an accomplished fact by the inter-war period."^[13]

War propaganda on the home front continually emphasised the equalising force of women working in the war effort; the myth remained alive that women came "[...] from domestic service and the dressmaker's room, from the High Schools and the Colleges, and from the quietude of the stately homes of the leisured rich..."^[14] Even though employment during the war did attract women from all social backgrounds, spheres were as class-divided as they had always been. Blue-collar jobs were dominated by working-class women, white-collar jobs by middle- and upper-class women. This is noteworthy and will be elaborated in the next paragraph, because the alleged unity of women working during the war fuelled another myth, namely that women's goals and aims could be unified. With a view to the backlash on women's achievements after the war, this misconception helps to explain why resistance to certain cuts was so relatively lame and support for reactionary policy widespread among women themselves.

While employment in general followed the dividing line between the classes, some occupations drew female recruits from all social backgrounds. The two most male-dominated areas of employment which were thus replenished or expanded were the armed forces and the Metropolitan police. The military or para-military structure, the hierarchy (female officers and NCOs were addressed as 'Sir' and held male-equivalent ranks), and not in the least the uniforms seemed to have appealed to women throughout society. Here, the aspiration to penetrate in particular those jobs that were regarded as strictly or predominantly male is most transparently manifest. While women in the army remained confined to semi-civilian jobs such as transport and ground personnel (the WRAF was nicknamed 'the Penguins' because they did not, or rather were not allowed to, fly), or restricted to traditionally 'female' occupations such as secretarial work or nursing, women in the police force were more widely employed. The rationale behind female constables on patrol was still firmly entrenched in the double morality standards; working 'girls' were considered susceptible to immoral behaviour and therefore had to be guarded closely by members of their own sex. Nonetheless, women constables patrolled, interfered and arrested just as their male colleagues did, and even though hostility towards women in both armed forces and the police was palpable, it was a popular job, with 900 patrols in London by 1915^[15].

All in all, women from all classes became gainfully and voluntarily employed in a broad variety of occupations which were formerly seen as male prerogatives. Considering the wages available, this is hardly surprising, but it seems to have been invigorating beyond the financial aspects for women to thus expand their horizons. In On Her Their Lives Depended: Munitions Workers in the Great War, based mainly on oral history and worker's writing, Angela Woollacott talks about "[...] the excitement of operating powerful equipment, [...] the creative satisfaction [...]"^[16] of welding; she describes the woman munitions worker as "[...] a powerful symbol of modernity."^[17] This attitude can be safely transferred to other areas of employment; working women, at least during the war, were modern in a very positive sense of the word. Without neglecting facts such as wage inequality, male resentment of working women, the exclusion of women from most professions and the non-existent advances towards full suffrage, the image of women emerging from the First World War is one of self-sufficiency, independence and strength. Contemporary voices of the anti-feminist movement deplored working women as 'masculine' and 'boyish'. For anyone who assigns a traditional division between the spheres of each gender, this was threatening indeed, particularly as the men returning from the war were lacking vitality, were weak and 'feminine'.^[18] The evident fears of women's 'masculinisation', however, only proves the extent of independence they achieved.

^[1] Read, Donald 'History: Political and Diplomatic' in: Cox, op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 2-50, p. 43; Borer (p. 95) claims 1,000,000 men dead

^[2] Pugh, Martin Women and the Women's Movement in Britain 1914-1959, London, 1992, pp. 3-5

^[3] ibid., p. 8

^[4] ibid., p. 8

^[5] ibid., p. 19

^[6] Braybon, Gail Women Workers in the First World War: The British Experience, London, 1981, p. 44

^[7] Obviously, some women did not achieve the necessary qualifications even when offered, or lacked enthusiasm; however, the same applies just as obviously to some men.

^[8] This is an area of employment where up to this day women are rarely found, the reason stated that they are not physically strong enough.

^[9] Pugh, op. cit., p. 20

^[10] Braybon, op. cit., p. 47

^[11] Pugh, op. cit., p. 20

^[12] ibid., p. 22

^[13] ibid., p. 22

^[14] L.K. Yates, as quoted by Braybon, op. cit., p. 48

^[15] Pugh, op. cit., p. 32

^[16] Woollacott, Angela On Her Their Lives Depended: Munition Workers in the Great War, Los Angeles, 1995, pp. 2

^[17] ibid., p. 3

^[18] Pugh, op. cit., pp. 76-80