Women in WARS

The angels of Passchendaele: Remarkable bravery shown by nurses who tended to wounded soldiers as bombs rained down on them is revealed

Annie Hanning, Agnes Warner, Hilda Loxton and Minnie Hough are pictured visiting a slit trench close to one of the surgical outposts used to treat casualties at Passchendaele

Today marks 100 years since the start of the battle near the Belgian city of Ypres, which killed or wounded an estimated one million solders, 77,000 of whom were Australian.

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World War One certainly helped the feminist movements..when you think that before the outbreak of war..normal day to day life for Britain’s women was mainly one of domesticity.. their places still largely in the home...keeping the  home fires burning..

Some..however like the Suffragettes were campaigning vocally for change.. but the glass ceiling in those days did not shift from it's position. It had  to take a war for women to come into their own and as the men headed abroad to fight.. women took their place en masse in factories.. shops and offices across the country. Once this happened..there was no going back!!

We have a lot to thank our grandmothers for...

Great thread Ann...

 

Hi Thea.

I don't know about you and the other ladies of my age, but I cannot help feel that women 50 and younger do take for granted what they have;   achieved by their grt grandmothers.

I feel that people of the younger persuasion just look at us and register 'OLD' they do not think that they too will be old very soon.

It only seems like yesterday I was 40!!

Yes there is MUCH to be learned from older folk -- and not just because I am one -- I always found so much knowledge was able to be sourced from my elders --  

'when an old person dies a libray is lost'

Yes Plan B.

I wish I had started the family tree when my late father was still with us!

yes, women took over many mens' jobs during the two world wars and shocked many at how well they could do them!

after WW2 in particular, there was a move in the late 1940 and 1950's to get women back into the kitchen and reduce any power, confidence and independence they may have gained.

as a result of such repression, the 1960's were a time of revolution and feminist growth. 

 

The women chain makers at Cradley Heath who wrnt on strike for a minimum wage.

The women chain makers at Cradley Heath who went on strike for a minimum wage.

After a national campaign against low pay by the Anti-Sweating League, the government introduced legislation to end “sweating” in four trades, including the domestic chain trade, where a minimum wage of 11s 3d a week was set. The employers at Cradley Heath in the West Midlands refused to pay the new wage rate. In response, the National Federation of Women Workers (NFWW) called a meeting in August 1910 at which the women refused to work at the old rates. About 800 women workers began a strike, going on daily marches.

On her first visit to Cradley Heath, the trade union agitator Mary Macarthur described the forges where the chains were made by women workers as akin to medieval torture chambers. While the average pay during that period was 26 shillings a week for men and 11s a week for women, the domestic chainmakers in Cradley Heath earned just 5s to 6s for a hard 54-hour week.

Women, wages and rights;  

Women munition workers sorting shells during the First World War

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 (Braybon 1989, p.49). It is difficult to get exact estimates because domestic workers were excluded from these figures and many women moved from domestic service into the jobs created due to the war effort. The employment of married women increased sharply – accounting for nearly 40% of all women workers by 1918 (Braybon, 1989: ]

But because women were paid less than men, there was a worry that employers would continue to employ women in these jobs even when the men returned from the war. This did not happen; either the women were sacked to make way for the returning soldiers or women remained working alongside men but at lower wage rates. But even before the end of the war, many women refused to accept lower pay for what in most cases was the same work as had been done previously by men. The women workers on London buses and trams went on strike in 1918 to demand the same increase in pay (war bonus) as men. The strike spread to other towns in the South East and to the London Underground. This was the first equal pay strike in the UK which was initiated, led and ultimately won by women.

Following these strikes, a Committee was set up by the War Cabinet in 1917 to examine the question of women’s wages and released its final report after the war ended (Report of the War Cabinet Committee on Women in Industry, Cmd 135, 1919, p.2).

  

Women in WW1

 

Women In WW1 Munitions Factory

Women in the Workplace

Traditional family structure was completely changed by the First World War.

Many married women were forced into the workplace by the death of their husbands.

Other women were drafted into industries that had been depleted by military conscription.

Over the course of the war:

200,000 women took up jobs in governmental departments.500,000 took up clerical positions in private offices.250,000 worked on in agricultural positions.700,000 women took up posts in the munitions industry, which was dangerous work.Many more women did hard heavy work, including ship building and furnace stoking. These types of jobs had excluded women prior to the war.

In July 1914, before the war broke out there were 3.2 million women in employment. This had risen to 5 million by January 1918.

What did World War 1 do for Women?

The war meant women had to take on a number of traditionally male roles. Their ability to do this led to a change in attitudes.

World War 1 caused the British suffrage movement to split:

Emmeline Pankhurst (leader of the Women’s Social and Political Union) called for a temporary ceasefire in their campaign so the country could focus fully on the war effort.Syliva Pankhurst and her Women’s Suffrage Federation were more radical and wanted the struggle to continue in spite of the situation.

When the war ended in November 1918 8.4 million women were granted the right to vote.

The Eligibility of Women Act was also passed in November 1918. This meant that some women could now be elected as members of Parliament.

World War 1 was undoubtedly the final catalyst for women to be given the vote. However, women would have to wait until 1928 to be granted the vote on equal terms with British men. This was brought by the Representation of the People Act, which stated all women over the age of 21 could vote.

 

Haven't heard about this before.

 

The destruction caused by an explosion at the National Shell Filling Factory at Chilwell, in which 134 people died.

The destruction caused by an explosion at the National Shell Filling Factory at Chilwell, in which 134 people died.HU 96428A

Munitions work was relatively well paid - especially for women previously employed in domestic service. But it was often unpleasant, dangerous and involved working long hours. Women in large shell filling factories worked with TNT. This poisonous explosive could cause a potentially fatal condition called toxic jaundice, indicated by the skin turning yellow. There were also several devastating explosions in which women workers were killed. The aftermath of one of the worst, at Chilwell, Nottinghamshire is shown in this photograph.

http://www.iwm.org.uk/history/12-things-you-didnt-know-about-women-in-the-first-world-war

http://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/women-in-wartime  Photo of two WAAAF flight mechanics, 1944.

Two WAAAF flight mechanics checking aircraft engine components at RAAF Station Tocumwal, 1944. Image courtesy of the Australian War Memorial. AWM VIC0380

    

I debated whether this should be placed in Mental Health....   The Forgotten Female Shell-Shock Victims of World War I

Studies about the mental-health impact of the war have focused almost exclusively on men, to the detriment of the women who

Suffered on the front lines and the home front.


 

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/09/world-war-ones-forgotten-female-shell-shock-victims/378995/ 

Also......  

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/08/the-first-face-transplants-were-masks/375527/ 

 

 

 

 

 

                         Image result for life is not a bed of roses

 

 

EXCLUSIVE: Washington's WOMEN soldiers revealed. How females fought for American independence disguised in male uniform - and chewed tobacco

The women who fought for Washington revealed in new book"

 

The women who fought for Washington revealed in new book

 

Extraordinary memoirs, diaries and personal essays of female veterans are revealed in the new book, It's My Country Too: Women's Military Stories from the American Revolution to Afghanistan. Firsthand accounts describe how women went on the front lines disguised as men for years without being found out by their male comrades. During the American Revolution, Deborah Sampson Gannett (top left) disguised herself as a man and enlisted in 1782 under the name Robert Shurtliffe. Gannett was discharged the following year when a fever led doctors to discover her sex, but she successfully petitioned for a military pension. The youngest known female to fight was just 12 years old and pregnant women fought at famous battles such as Gettysburg and the siege of Vicksburg.

 

The angels of Passchendaele: Remarkable bravery shown by nurses who tended to wounded soldiers as bombs rained down on them is revealed

Annie Hanning, Agnes Warner, Hilda Loxton and Minnie Hough are pictured visiting a slit trench close to one of the surgical outposts used to treat casualties at PasschendaeleAnnie Hanning, Agnes Warner, Hilda Loxton and Minnie Hough are pictured visiting a slit trench close to one of the surgical outposts used to treat casualties at Passchendaele"

Today marks 100 years since the start of the battle near the Belgian city of Ypres, which killed or wounded an estimated one million solders, 77,000 of whom were Australian.

Florence Nightingale was not the only woman that went to war. No Place for Ladies: The Untold Story of Women in the Crimean WarBy Helen Rappaport

History views the Crimean War as a conflict marred by bungling, and many British officers emerged with their reputations in tatters. While military glory was lacking, nurses came to symbolise the glory of empire, working long hours in filthy conditions to tend the wounded and dying. Elsewhere, courageous women such as officer’s wife Fanny Duberly provided harrowing eye-witness reports of the atrocities of war

 

http://www.victoriansecrets.co.uk/catalogue/no-place-for-ladies-the-untold-story-of-women-in-the-crimean-war/

 

Female Tommies on the frontline: Amazing images show the brave women who fought in WWI including Britain's only female soldier who was injured by a grenade in HAND TO HAND combat

Images show brave women fighting in World War 1

It was one of the most treacherous wars in history - lasting four years and resulting in millions of deaths. While the tragic stories of what the male soldiers endured is often relived, the female Tommies are overlooked for their contribution towards the horrific battles. But Elisabeth Shipton has highlighted the immense bravery of women who were under fire and in combat during the First World War. Alongside the astonishing stories, they feature stunning photographs of the women during the war. They include Elsie Knocker and Mairi Chisholm (top left), Emmeline Pankhurst, Maria Bochkareva and women of the Battalion of Death (top right), the Russian women's battalions from Petrograd (bottom left), ambulance drivers of the Scottish Women's Hospital (bottom right) and Sergeant Major Flora Sandes (inset) who was injured by a grenade during hand to hand combat.

 

 

 'I condemned my mother to the gas chamber with one wrong word to Dr Death': Ballet dancer who survived Auschwitz horror reveals her anguish

Holocaust survivor and ballet dancer publishes memoirs

 Holocaust survivor and ballet dancer publishes memoirs"

Music is playing as we arrive at Auschwitz. It's a cold dawn in April 1944 and we've just been decanted from a cattle car, in which several people have died along the way, writes Edith Eger. But my father has just spied a big sign above the gates: 'Arbeit macht frei,' it says - work sets you free. He is suddenly cheerful. 'You see,' he says, 'it can't be a terrible place. We'll only work a little, till the war's over.' If the platform weren't so crowded, I swear he'd break into a dance.

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