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War And Gender Roles In The 1920's

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War had a dramatic impact on gender roles and the path that women’s rights took. “Both wars have been seen as motors of change, bringing in their wake new legislation, new patterns of behavior and new ways of thinking” (Noakes, 2007, p. 143). War causes public opinions to change in short periods of time. For England, the change was a strong need to find their perceived peaceful nation once again. This, in part, appeared in the form of trying to push women back into traditional gender-roles. However, a country can’t go back in time, so gender-roles will be changed do matter what. “Total war seems to have the potential to challenge the status quo, challenging patterns of family life, of work, and of political organizations” (Noakes, 2007, p. …show more content…

242). Feminists who wanted equal pay and equal opportunity began shifting their opinions or becoming less aggressive in their efforts throughout the 1920’s. Cicely Hamilton said “we are retreating where once we advanced” (Kent, 1988, p. 239). There was no longer a place for the militant suffragettes of the WSPU in the interwar period. Britain had seen too much violence. The public opinion at the end of the war greatly influenced the stance that after war feminism took. In Making Peace: The Reconstruction of Gender in Interwar Britain, Kent states that the experience of the war led pre-war feminists to shift their stance from equal pay and opportunities to reinvigorating the ideals of separate spheres (Noakes, 2007, p. 144). People wanted a return to the peaceful times they had enjoyed during the golden age, and they strongly linked traditional gender-roles to those times. Eleanor Rathbone led the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship (NUSEC) which seceded the NUWSS at the end of the war. Rathbone followed a ‘new’ feminism which “embodied [the] belief that the equality of women with men had been achieved” (Kent, 1988, p. 240). New feminism is also viewed as a step backwards by many especially in foresight. These new feminists stopped challenging the ideological issues caused by their gender, and their new ideology became too similar to that of antifeminists. Their new demands were based on what women at home might need instead of equal voting rights. In Woman’s Leader, Mary Stocks with Rathbone that the promotion of motherhood was more important than demanding equal pay and equal opportunities because “the majority of women workers are only birds of passage in their trade” (Kent, 1988, p. 241). With how feminism is seen today, this shift was a fatal change. This new feminism was so similar to

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They didn’t physically fight in the war, they were part of organizations like the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRENS) in which they did jobs like cipher duties in which they decoded messages, they had coder duties where they made coded messages, they learnt how to use telephone switch boards, and many others. All these jobs were given to women with the idea that women could do the simple jobs that were very crucial and men could do all the heavy work in the war. By the end of the war 39 trades had been declared as open to the WRENS. Another group of women would be The Women's Auxiliary Airforce(WAAF) who helped transport auxiliary. However that wasn’t their only job, they had many other jobs like ferrying aircrafts from factories to squadron, they had volunteers from Canada, United States, and the United Kingdom making them a huge part of winning the

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After the start of WWI, changing the role of women became a huge favorable change for the society. In the December of 1941, Britain put into place the second National service act, and therefore, Britain became the first nation to conscript women in the world and it gave them a part in the conflict in the making of history (hubpages). They had organizations such as the FANY-First Aid Nursing Yeomanry,- and VAD-society of female volunteers which was part of the effort toward war. New jobs opened up for women through ads in newspapers, which included tram drivers, postal workers, police patrols, chemical manufacturers, munition workers, typists, and many more. Counter argument: Some might argue that the roles of women did not change much due to

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From the 1st of September 1939 to the 2nd of September 1945, life in Australia experienced drastic change. These six years and one day were the catalyst for a radical shift in Australian women’s place in society, ultimately leading to their emancipation from previous roles. The Second World War was instrumental in the liberation of Australian women as their shift away from traditional roles, improved financial equality and increased military participation led to empowerment and new freedoms. The most prominent of these factors in the liberation of Australian women was their emancipation from previous roles. World War Two catalysed the empowerment of women through their emancipation from previous roles in society.

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Likewise, Bruley strengthens the argument that ‘One of the ironies of war is that women on whole emerged in 1918 healthier and enjoyed a higher standard of living than in 1914’. Bruley’s view has limited validity because women proved that being employed helped them mentally and physically as work occupied their mind and not their husbands. This helped them build communities of support for their love ones in war. Women were unifying as unmarried mothers, who were usually shunned away in society, were allowed to return to work, although at Woolwich children of these women were cared for in a separate nursery from children of married women. This shows that within society their status now affected them rather than their gender as ‘war made them see women’s traditional roles as wives and mothers as even more

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Women’s rights activists gave their movement the title “the women movement”. These women wanted to expand their professions out of the house and into higher paying jobs. They spread their belief that women’s unique homemaking traits would make society more humanized. Women’s clubs through the late nineteenth century began taking a stand on public affairs. These reformers started working more outside of the house in jobs such as consumer protection and housing improvement.

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Not only were the women recruited into the old jobs vacated by the men, who had gone to fight in the war, but new jobs were also created as part of the war effort. The government’s attitude towards female employment at first was negative as they were reluctant to allow the women to do any jobs left by the men. This later changed, as the government began pushing forward the idea of employment of women through campaigns and recruitment drives. Working as railway guards and ticket collectors, buses and tram conductors, postal workers, police, firefighters and as bank tellers and clerks, women began to change the concept of what was before deemed as ‘men’s

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history woman have been treated like property, they never had a say in politics or in their community. All they did was the care of their household, and see to the well-being of their families. The war created opportunity for women in the north, they took advantage of it, hoping to get equality for all. Mary Livermore explained do, “It is for our young women that the great changes of the time promise the most: it is for our daughters, --the fair, bright girls, who are the charm of society and the delight of home; the sources of infinite comfort to fathers and mothers, and the sources of great anxiety also. What shall we do with them, --and what shall they do with and for themselves?

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So, as seen in source 4, women were needed to work and contribute to the war effort. They were needed as teachers and taxi and bus drivers and a lot more types of jobs. Every job that men had left, the women needed to fill. This resulted in a change in the role of women. They were now able to do more, which impacted women’s rights and roles for the years during and after the war.

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