World War 1 Women Essay

The image of World War 1 viewed by society today explores the hardships which soldiers experienced on overseas. Although, one topic which is often left silenced is the women's role on the Australian home front. World War 1 which occurred from 1914-1918 resulted in women on the Australian home front undertaking an overwhelmingly large increase in responsibilities, including excess domestic duties, assisting the men at war and undertaking the traditional men responsibilities. Women's new and emerging roles caused significant financial and emotional stress, in addition to the anxiety of wondering if your loved ones were ever going to return home.

One area women gained responsibility in as a result of Australian soldiers going to Europe is domestic

This source demonstrates that in the absence of men, women were forced to increase household responsibilities such as raising children and cleaning the house. An increased domestic responsibility in the absence of men implies paying bills on their own, which can be a huge burden on women given the man in the relationship was typically the breadwinner. Therefore, this secondary source is relatively useful because it clearly demonstrates the overwhelmingly large increase in responsibilities for women on the Australian home front, and the source can be identified as reliable as it comes from a government website. In addition, figure 1 displays the increase in women's jobs between 1911 and 1921, (ANZAC Portal, 2023). This secondary source highlights that 6868 women in Australia saw an increase in domestic duties during the war. In addition to highlighting the domestic duties increase, it demonstrates that women saw a huge increase in other areas

A website dedicated to recording women's work on the home front states, "Women’s employment rates increased during WWI, from 23.6% of the working age population in 1914 to between 37.7% and 46.7% in 1918," (Striking Women, n.d). This secondary source demonstrates clearly that women's employment rates increased significantly during the war. This source is extremely useful because it demonstrates the extent to which women's work load increased during the war. Although women did gain more respect from society with the increase of their work load, there were still huge inequality margins. Figure 3, (a political cartoon) depicts a situation where a male soldier returning from war is rejected, bcauase the business can pay women lower wages, (ANZAC Day Commemoration Committee, 2023). This highlights that although women were doing the exact same jobs as men, they were not treated as equals. Therefore, this source extremely is useful because it demonstrates that even though women got an opportunity to do traditional men jobs, women were not treated with equality. The source is accurate and reliable given it comes from an ANZAC commemoration committee, clearly demonstrating an Australian perspective. Therefore, women were faced with an expectation to fulfil traditional men jobs, although they were not treated as equals in the eyes of