Evaluate The Impact Of World War On Australian Women Essay

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EVALUATE THE IMPACT OF WORLD WAR I ON THE ROLE AND PERCEPTION OF WOMEN IN AUSTRALIAN SOCIETY.

History demonstrates that World War I was inescapable. Its callous capacity to dehumanise individuals’ lead to casualties soaring into the millions. The outburst of exaggerated propaganda was one of the many factors that encouraged young Australian men to bring glory to their ‘mother country’ and join the war. However, during the brutal conflicts, soldiers weren’t the only individuals who gained the gratitude of many citizens in their country, but it also proved, for the first time on a global scale, the enormous value of a woman’s contribution, paving the way for future generations of women to do the same. During the World War, a variety of jobs …show more content…

Despite the denouncing of a woman’s abilities, the French general, a political soldier of war has enhanced the status of women by stating “If the women in the factories stopped work for twenty minutes, the allies would lose the war.” Most commonly, women’s roles in the armed services were clerical, meaning most women worked in office-based services. These services involved traditional men’s roles such as truck and ambulance drivers and intelligence officers. But the most crucial occupation of them all is the nursing of severely wounded soldiers in the battlefield. “I've been a soldier now for nearly three years, and please God I will go right to the end ... if anything happened, and I too passed out, well, there would be no finer way, and no way in which I would be happier, than to lay down one's life for the men who have given everything.” These women were deeply moved and devoted to their roles as it gave them an opportunity to make a change to Australia’s outlook on women equality. Yet in Australia, women still received a wage 54 percent lower than that of their male counterparts. Their role was still seen to be in the home, performing domestic duties and raising the children. This precisely evaluates the changing nature of Australia in providing non-domestic based roles to woman, despite the rise of financial disadvantages between both genders. Therefore, the elevation of the women’s role in society through the conflicts of World War one has enhanced their opportunities and their recognition in