During both world wars, women were required to undertake new roles in their respective national war efforts.Adams, R.J.Q. (1978). Arms and the Wizard. Lloyd George and the Ministry of Munitions 1915–1916, London: Cassell & Co Ltd. . Particularly, Chapter 8: The Women's Part. Women across the world experienced severe setbacks as well as considerable societal progress during this timeframe.Wibben, Annick T R, and Jennifer Turpin. "Women and War." In Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace and Conflict, edited by Lester R. Kurtz. 2nd ed. Elsevier Science & Technology, 2008. The two world wars hinged as much on industrial production as they did on battlefield clashes. While some women managed to enter the traditionally male career paths, women, for the most part, were expected to be primarily involved in "duties at home" and "women's work," especially after the wars were over. On the other hand, the two wars also victimized women and subjected them to numerous incidences of sexual violence, abuse, and death.
During World War I, women in the Western world, including Europe, Canada, and the United States, contributed to the war efforts on both the home fronts and the battlefields. Women's employment rates skyrocketed in domestic and industrial sectors.Greenwald, Maurine W. "Rosie the Riveter." In Encyclopedia of War and American Society, by Peter Karsten. Sage Publications, 2006. Nursing became one of the most popular professions in military employment during these years.Wagner, Nancy O'Brien. "Awfully Busy these Days: Red Cross Women in France during World War I." Minnesota History 63.1 (2012): 24–35. In Asia, women's labor in the cotton and silk industries became essential for the economy.Hunter, Janet. "Japanese Women at Work, 1990–1920." History Today 43.49 (1993). Before 1914, few countries, including New Zealand, Australia, and several Scandinavian nations, had given women the right to vote (see Women's suffrage). Still, otherwise, women were minimally involved in the political process. Women's participation in WWI fostered the support and development of the suffrage movement, including in the United States.DeBolt, Abbe Allen, and Abbe Allen DeBolt M.S.S. "Nineteenth Amendment." In Encyclopedia of U.S. Campaigns, Elections, and Electoral Behavior, by Kenneth F. Warren. Sage Publications, 2008.
During the Second World War, women's contributions to industrial labor in factories located on the home front kept society and the military running while the world was in chaos. Women in the Western World also gained more opportunities to serve directly in their country's armed forces, which they had limited opportunities to do in WWI.Manning, Lory. "Military, Women Serving in." In Encyclopedia of Gender and Society, by Jodi O'Brien. Sage Publications, 2009. At the same time, women faced a significant amount of abuse during this time; the Japanese military systematically raped women across Asia, and Jewish women were physically abused, raped, and murdered in German concentration camps across Europe.Steitz, Jerstin. "No ‘Innocent Victim’?: Sexual Violence Against Jewish Women during the Holocaust as Trope in Zeugin Aus Der Hölle." Women in German Yearbook 33 (2017): 101–127.
The participation of women in the world wars catalyzed the later recruitment of women in many countries' armed forces.Toktas, Sule. "Nationalism, Modernization, and the Military in Turkey: Women Officers in the Turkish Armed Forces." Oriente Moderno 23 (84) (2004): 247–267. Women's involvement in these wartime efforts exposed their commitment to serving their country and preserving national security and identity.
Black women in particular were drawn to factory jobs in larger numbers due to the labor shortages. They worked as welders, riveters, and machine operators, and were key to the production of tanks, planes, and ships. Many of these jobs had traditionally been occupied by white men, but the demand for labor during wartime opened doors for women of all races.
The war years opened new job categories and promoted some mobility for Black women. For example, many migrated from the rural South to urban areas to work in factories. Between 1940 and 1944, the proportion of Black women in domestic service and farm work decreased significantly as they moved into industrial jobs, with the number of Black women in industrial occupations rising from 6.5% to 18%.
World War I
Europe
In Great Britain just before World War I, there were 24 million adult women, and 1.7 million worked in domestic service, 200,000 worked in the textile manufacturing industry, 600,000 worked in the clothing trades, 500,000 worked in commerce, and 260,000 worked in local and national government, including teaching. The British textile and clothing trades, in particular, employed far more women than men and were regarded as 'women's work.' By 1914 nearly. 5.09 million out of the 23.8 million women in Britain were working. Thousands worked in munitions factories (see Canary Girl, Gretna Girls), offices, and large hangars to build aircraft. Women were also involved in knitting socks for the soldiers on the front, as well as other voluntary work, but as a matter of survival, women had to work for paid employment for the sake of their families. Many women worked as volunteers serving at the Red Cross, encouraged the sale of war bonds, or planted "victory gardens."
The First World War allowed women in Great Britain to participate in the workforce, including assembly lines.Fiona, A A. "Trade Unionism and Women Workers." In Reader's Guide to British History, edited by D. M. Loades. Routledge, 2003. In Great Britain, this was known as a process of "Dilution" and was strongly contested by the trade unions, particularly in the engineering and shipbuilding industries. For the duration of both world wars, women sometimes did take on skilled "men's work." However, by the agreement negotiated with the trade unions, women undertaking jobs covered by the Dilution agreement lost their jobs at the end of the First World War.
Although women were still paid less than men in the workforce, pay inequalities were starting to diminish as women were now getting paid two-thirds of the typical pay for men, a 28% increase. However, the extent of this change is open to historical debate. In part because of female participation in the war effort, Canada, the United States, Great Britain, and several European countries extended suffrage to women in the years after the First World War.
British historians no longer emphasize the granting of woman suffrage as a reward for women's participation in war work. Historian Martin D. Pugh argues that senior politicians primarily determined women's suffrage. The suffragettes had been weakened, Pugh argues, by repeated failures before 1914 and by the disorganizing effects of war mobilization; therefore, they quietly accepted these age-related restrictions, which were approved in 1918 by a majority of the War Ministry and each political party in Parliament.Martin D. Pugh, "Politicians and the Women's Vote 1914–1918," History, October 1974, Vol. 59 Issue 197, pp. 358–374 More generally, G. R. Searle (2004) argues that the British debate was essentially over by the 1890s and that granting suffrage in 1918 was primarily a byproduct of voting for male soldiers. Women in Britain finally achieved suffrage on the same terms as men in 1928.G. R. Searle, A New England? Peace and war, 1886–1918 (2004) p. 791
Nursing became almost the only area of female contribution that involved being at the front and experiencing the war. In Britain, Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps, First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, and Voluntary Aid Detachment started before World War I. The VADs were not allowed in the front line until 1915.
`In other European countries, such as in the 1918 Finnish Civil War, more than 2,000 women fought in the paramilitary Women's Red Guards. The only belligerent to deploy female combat troops in substantial numbers was the Russian Provisional Government in 1917. Its few "Women's Battalions" fought well but failed to provide the expected propaganda value and were disbanded before the end of the year. In the later Russian Civil War, the Bolsheviks employed women infantry.
Women living in present-day Slovakia, under the rule of the Habsburg monarchy at the time of the First World War, only sometimes upheld the pro-war attitude that dominated central Europe.Dudekova Kovacova, Gabriela. "the Silent Majority: Attitudes of Non-Prominent Citizens at the Beginning of the Great War in the Territory of Today's Slovakia" Revue Des Études Slaves 88.4 (2017): 699–719. Furthermore, their dissenting attitudes towards war heightened, especially when members of their own families, such as their husbands, were conscripted into the army. Women expressed their disapproval by creating feminist organizations such as the Hungarian Feminist's Association to encourage pacifism. Habsburg monarchy women also expressed their disapproval through public protestation.
United States
The involvement of women in World War I played a vital role in the U.S.’s victory. They filled in the jobs the men left behind to fight in the war. Women did not physically fight in combat, but their contribution consisted of behind-the-scenes work at home, raising money, and working to keep the country up and running. Without the efforts of women, tens of thousands of men needed at the front would have been tied to jobs in agriculture, industry, and home-front military and not available for wartime service, and the success of America's military effort may have been in the balance. Every housewife in the U.S. was asked to sign a pledge card that had to food and assignments completed.
Thousands of women in the United States formed and/or joined organizations that worked to bring relief to the war-torn countries in Europe, even before official American entry into the war in April 1917. Everyone contributed to the efforts of the war regardless of their social class. Upper-class women were the primary founders and members of voluntary wartime organizations, mainly because they could afford to devote much of their time and money to these efforts. Middle- and lower-class women also participated in these organizations and drives, although they were more likely to serve as nurses in the military or replace men in their jobs on the home front as the men went off to war. For the first time in American history, women from every part of the class spectrum were serving in the war in some capacity.
There were many tasks and jobs that the women did that went unaccounted for in history because they mainly focused on the contribution of the men in the war. Women in World War I revealed the vast jobs that they did, such as enlisting in the navy, army, and factory jobs. They became members of the social welfare program entitled the American Red Cross. They assigned duties that would help out the soldiers that were overseas, such as organizing bloods drives, giving vaccinations, and packaging food. Women worked locally within their state by aiding traveling soldiers and raising money to support the war efforts. Furthermore, women serving for the American Red Cross also had the opportunity to serve in Europe, where the war was mostly taking place. Abroad, these women worked as nurses, recreational volunteers, chemists, and more.Over 12,000 women were enlisted in auxiliary roles in the United States Navy and Marine Corps during the First World War. About 400 of them died in that war.