What is this poster inferring about women at this time it was published?

Mr Slocombe [senior curator at the imperial war museum] explained: ‘During the Second World War they had a very contradictory approach to women, and lurched from one stereotype to another depending on the needs of the day.

‘At the beginning of the war they were shown to be helpless females in need of male protection.‘Then from 1941 when women were called to do war work, the images became much more positive.

‘But in the anti-gossip, anti-spying campaigns, women were often portrayed as femme fatales, or as being unreliable, and vaguely untrustworthy.’

Learning Objective: To understand the impact of the Second World War on women

Learning Outcome; By the end of this lesson you will be able to discuss the impact of the Second World War on the lives of women in Britain

Pay

• Women continued to be paid less than men for doing the same job, especially in factory work, where they usually received about 75 per cent of a mans wage!

Men over 21 years

121s 4d £6.07

Men under 21 years

47S 11d £2.40

Women over 18 years

62s 11d £3.30

Women part time workers

29s 0d £1.45

Women under 18

33s 11d £1.70

Source A – Average weekly wages for men and women in 1943

Lesson 14

Pay

• Women complained as they didn’t receive enough money from the government while their husbands were serving in the armed forced, however not all women felt the same way……

Source B: An interview with a women by the research organisation Mass Observation in

1942

• I do feel that equal pay would upset the relations between the sexes. Personally, I like a man to have more money than me. It gives me twice as much pleasure to have a dress brought for me by a kindly man than to buy it myself, and this is because I am feminine.

Lesson 14

Task

• What can you learn from Source S about women's pay during the Second World War?

• Study Source B. Write a response from a woman worker, possibly in a munitions factory in favour of equal pay.

Equal Pay Commission

• The government set up the equal pay commission in 1943, but it had no powers. By the end of the war women were no nearer equality with men in pay than they had been in 193, unless they were on piece rates, paid for every item they produced as opposed to the number of hours they worked.

• Despite all this many women were pleased to be involved in useful work that helped the war effort and many were still earning much more than they were used to getting before the war. The average women's wage before the war was £2 a week and during the war some women took home as much as £10 per week!

Source C; An interview with Mona Marshall in the 1960’s. She worked in the steel industry

during the war • To be honest, the war was the best thing

that ever happened to us. I was green as grass and terrified if anyone spoke to me. I have been brought up not to argue. My generation of women has been taught to do as we were told. At work you did exactly as your boss told you and you went home and do exactly what your husband told you. The war changed all that. The war made me stand on my own two feet.

Lesson 14

Source D: An interview with Pat Parker, in the 1980’s, about her three and a half years in

the Women's Land Army. • Those years were absolutely fantastic.

They were complete freedom, where id never known it before. Id always had my father standing on the corner of the street saying. ‘You should be indoors’ this was nine o clock at night. And that went on until I was sixteen. Whereas, being away I could do as I liked. All of a sudden nobody was bothering me and my life was my own.

Lesson 14

Task

• What can you learn from Source C about the impact of war on the attitudes of women?

• Do you think you can rely on the evidence of Source C? Explain your answer, using sources C and D.

Attitudes of men

• Many men, especially employers and politicians were impressed with the work done by women. The trade unions accepted women workers much more readily than they had done in the First World War. The Trade Union Congress (TUC) campaigned to make sure that women were treated the same as men. For example the TUR successfully complained about the fact that women were paid 25 per cent less and received lower accident compensation than men the Rolls Royce armament factory.

•The government also began to help women with child care commitments providing nurseries and encourages employers to allow women with children to job share. By 1944 there were 1450 nurseries, compared to 104 before the war.

•Nevertheless there was not a revolution in attitudes to women’s roles in society and the majority of men continued to believe that the traditional roles of women were wives and mothers and that they should return to the home after the war.

Source E: Clement Attlee, the Deputy Prime Minister, writing in 1943 about the work

done by women.

• This work the women are performing in munitions factories has to be seen to be believed. Precision engineering jobs which a few years ago would have made a skilled turners hair stand on end are performed with deadly accuracy by girls who had no industrial experience.

Lesson 14

Source F: A women shop steward

interviewed in 1941 • We have no objections to working in

factories but we do object to the conditions we have to work in. women in industry are called upon to bear burdens that are beyond imagination. Many are soldiers wives who are obliged to go to work to keep their homes together as their allowances are so inadequate. We have to work up to ten hours a day but we still often only earn half the man wages.

Lesson 14

Task

Similarities Differences

First World War

Second World War

Make a copy of the following table, which compares the part played By women in the two world wars.

Using the information from the table, previous sources and your ownknowledge answer the question;

Which war brought the greatest change in the position of women ?

Did the role of women really change 1945-1950?

YouTube - 1950s British suburbia

Source A : Women in paid work (percentages) from N.DeMarco, The Second World War, Hodder 1997, page 54

Single Women

Married Women

All Women

1911 69 10 35

1921 68 9 34

1931 72 10 34

1951 73 22 35

Lesson 14

Yes ?

• The war had given women more confidence and self respect

• The number of women in paid work increased

• Some women did find work when their children were growing up

No ?• Most women willingly left their wartime jobs as they wanted

to return to the home. 58% of women believed married women should not go out to work

• Women's career opportunities weren't drastically improved by the war, their careers in engineering only lasted as long as the war, nurseries opened during the war to enable women to work were closed after the war

• As late as 1961 only 15% of doctors and 3% of lawyers were women

• The Equal Pay Commission reported in 1946 that the average male manual workers wage was £5.70 a week, whereas a women's wage was £3.00. This was not seen as a problem as the male was still seen as the bread winner.

Source C: A women remembers Married life after the war.

After a while we settled to some sort of married life but there were times when I thought it was hell on earth, I was living in, many of us felt as though we were going back to prison.

Source B

Lesson 14

Task • Give two examples of the lack of change in

the position of women.

• What can you learn from Source A about changes in the employment of women?

• What image of women is shown in Source B, does Source C agree with this image? Explain your answer.