Wake up, cook, feed children, clean, teach children, clean, cook, sleep. That was a typical day for women while their husbands would be off at work making money to support his and his wife's family. That all changed though, once World War One started and the men were conscripted into the war leaving the wife's at home to do all of their normal tasks, as well as what the men used to do. Providing for the family.
By the 1914's, nearly 5.9 million Britain women were working. Thousands of them worked in munitions factories, offices, and large hangars used to build air craft. Doing all of this work, women soon proved that they were highly capable in diverse fields of labor. Just because the men were off fighting and they had to work does not mean that women could just forget about there jobs as a home maker and mother, they still managed to do all the hard labor out side of the home, but in the home as well.
Men off at war were not forgotten by the women at home. The women started knitting socks and preparing hampers for the soldiers on the front line. They made bombs and ammunition's and then some of the women became nurses on the front, which was the only area of female contribution that involved experiencing the war.
Women proved that they were highly capable in diverse fields of labor. They drove buses, taxis, and street cars, even though before the men left they were not "aloud" to ride them alone. Women proved that they had the skills, strength, and ability to do the work that a man did. Some women who worked as lumberjacks and loggers during the war were now called "lumberjills". The field with the greatest increase of women workers was in engineering and women were employed in government for the very first time. A quarter of a million women worked on land and industries that had previously excluded women now welcomed them. There was a particular demand for women to do heavy work. In 1915 women demanded that they have the "right to serve".
Once soldiers started to return from the war, the women were getting forced out of jobs. Some soldiers who were not able to work cause of injuries, there wife's would take their jobs, and that is how women started working shoulder-to-shoulder with men. Even though women were doing the same labor as men and working the same hours, women's wages were still considerably low compared to those of men's. 426
World War One was a huge turning point for Women. Of course we will never forget the fallen soldiers or war veterans, but we will also never forget the huge turning point the war held for women then, now, and future women. The first World War gave gave women the ability and chance to show men that we are just as equal, able, and willing to do the things that "they" consider a "man's job."
