The importance of women since the I War
Introduction
The objective of this research is to evaluate whether one of the consequences of World War I was the improvement of working and political conditions for women in England;Specifically, if having to replace men in the work they performed before the war had consequences for their autonomy and their status as citizens. To achieve this objective, the economic, social and political conditions of women will be studied immediately before, during and after the war, comparing these conditions with each other.
Developing
Among the sources used to carry out this research, there are books and academic articles written by women or men in collaboration with them, because their role in history has been recovered, especially in the twentieth century, by women themselves. This is the case of historian George Duby, a prestigious French historian who has directed a history of women [1] of several volumes in collaboration with Michelle Perrot, a French historian pioneer in this type of history. Volume 5 has been used since it is the one that treats contemporary history.
This is the period that is being studied in this work. The purpose of this book is to tell a story in which women are the protagonists and tell how they are influenced and influenced by the historical environment. On the one hand, the fact that it is an academic book does, directly, a serious and reliable source, whose authors are specialists in the subject. In addition, being further from the time in which the events happened, it is an objective source with historical perspective and an impartial look. The main limitation of the source lies in its purpose.
The text will be influenced by the objective of the authors to denounce the discrimination of women in history. Also, this source cannot convey the real experience of the people who lived at this time. Another of the sources used in work is a personal testimony of an English woman, Ruby Rathbone, who, after the head in front of her fiance in 1916, is voluntary to work as a bus driver. He does it as a way to contribute to war, but, after marrying they throw her out of work and dedicates the rest of her life to being a housewife
The purpose of this source is to give direct testimony of a woman who experienced in the first person the employment and social situation that is being studied at work. These types of sources, on the one hand, provide information that can hardly be obtained in another way, but, on the other, they are characterized by their subjectivity. In addition, some testimonies have been translated so it has been possible to lose or misrepresent information. The study of English women during World War
It is seeing how this helped change such a situation. That country and that historical period have been chosen, in the first place, because England was the cradle of the industrial revolution and industrialization was a determining factor in female emancipation. Second, because England was the country where, together with the US. UU, the most mobilized women in favor of the vote. During the nineteenth century, the development of chain work and the replacement of physical strength by the machine that produced industrialization, favored the incorporation of women into work, which, in turn, motivated the development of feminism.
Still at that time the woman was still dependent on a man. He was not a free individual and the category of citizen was not recognized, that is, he had no right to participate in political affairs. In addition, the female stereotype consisted of the image of women as a mother and angel of the home, reserved for the private sphere, while man was politically active, rational and intelligent, perfect for public life. However, American and English women had been challenging this image for a long time. While the suffragists first emerged in the United States.
The most impatient were the British. Since the nineteenth, in England, a Protestant country, more modern and evolved, and more economically developed than others, moderate suffragists had been trying to get the vote through requests to Parliament and lobbying. After the constant denials by the government, the votes began to use radical militants. Emmeline Pankhurst was the main leader of this new radical vote that defended that gender inequality was given by the patriarchal system on which British society settled.
Just before World War I the expansion of suffragist ideas in addition to their violence, their position before the female vote rethink the British government. But with the outbreak of the contest the suffragism was in the background because the government had to concentrate on other matters of greater importance, in addition to the suffragists postponed their cause before the national emergency. Women’s work is important during World War I in England. One of the direct consequences of World War I was that the rear was without labor.
It is for this reason that the woman held the positions previously held by men. In Great Britain, 800.000 women went from being housewives to work with a fixed salary, and 80.000 of these women obtained positions as auxiliaries of the Armed Forces in which they created women’s units such as the WAAC (Army Auxiliary Female Corps), the WRNS (Female Service of the Royal Navy) and the WRAF (real force force female area) and othersMany women enrolled as nurses. During the war 972.000 English women worked in ammunition factories.
The fact that there were no men who continued to exercise their work gave women the opportunity to prove their worth and to show that they were as able to work, both in the industry and in the field, as truck drivers, buses and meters. They could mount airplanes, work on the railroads, in the mines etc. And, although they knew that many of these works were temporary, they discovered that they could perform the same jobs as men and that, in addition, this situation offered them opportunities, economic autonomy and independence, since when receiving a salary for their work no longerThey had to depend on any man.
The postwar period and change in the social and political life of women. Many assumed that these changes would be temporary and that once the war ended everything would return to normal. But women began to be aware of their worth and acquired that necessary confidence to demand more political and social power. After the war, the government that, as I pointed out before, had already rethink the female vote, wanted to recognize the merit of women for their participation in the contest. On May 28, 1918, the women’s supply law was approved with 364 votes in favor and 22 against.
Although only for those women over 30 years old and of a certain social position. The rest of the women had to wait until 1928. On the other hand, the stereotype of a woman and the concept of femininity changed radically, which manifested in the clothing and fashion that, for example, no longer marked the curves or the figure, but contributed freedom and comfort. It has been proven that the majority interpretation of this era in relation to women is that the contest helped them with their emancipation because working outside the home and winning a salary had an impact on its self – esteem.
Even in social recognition, however, some historians clarify this statement because many women who worked during the war replacing men had to abandon the work as soon as they returned. Although it is true that the image of the woman changed in some aspects, it is also that her traditional image survived for a long time and even reaches the present. On the other hand, the effect of the war on female emancipation basically refers to middle -class women because the workers barely saw their employment situation changed.
Thus, World War I was an important change in the life of English women. Consolidated the feminist movement giving women the necessary confidence to demand autonomy and the right to vote. The restricted female suffrage was approved as recognition for suffering and effort during the war. In addition, the experience of an away work with a salary greatly influenced female liberation and was a radical change of the stereotype and the role of women in society. However, these changes were not well seen by all.
For anti-sofragistas, that women obtained the right to vote would mean a social disorder for their participation in public life, which would mean that men stop having the monopoly of power. In addition, according to them, it would mean the abandonment of domestic tasks such as home care, children etc. Regarding the methods that I have used to perform this work, the first thing that attracts attention is the difficulty of selecting the sources to go because, in the case of a subject of women’s history, the effort to find information has been greater.
There were much less sources than if it had dealt with the history of men. A lot of information has been collected about women, since their historical study did not interest, among other things, because the story was made by men. In addition, women wrote much less about what happened to them because it was not well seen in the society in which they lived. Among those who knew how to read and write, it was only well seen that they wrote letters or newspapers that, then, on many occasions, they would destroy. There are also not so many public or official sources about their life.
Another of the common difficulties that historians face is objectivity. In the case of the history of women, it becomes a greater difficulty because when writing history with some purpose other than the mere fact of informing, it acquires greater subjectivity. Also, being a relatively recent social issue and having done the work with the main objective of denouncing the situation of women during that period, this analysis is more sensitive. Another difficulty has consisted of handling the original and secondary sources in English.
When translating a text or testimony, information can be lost and the texts lose spontaneity, since translation can never be absolutely faithful. Finally, another of the challenges I have faced has been to put myself in the place of these women to describe and explain better how they felt, although in today’s society they continue to produce situations similar to those who lived these women,It has not been so complicated.
conclusion
Once this work I have understood that historical events are those deciding on historians who are, and as until very recently, historians were only men, what women did was not considered history. Fortunately, since the 70s this situation is changing because there are more and more women who dedicate themselves to the historian’s trade and that the perspective of men is changing, thanks, in large part, to the feminist movement.
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