Feminism and World War II in England - Research Paper Example

FEMINISM AND WORLD WAR II IN ENGLAND module 22 December FEMINISM AND WORLD WAR II IN ENGLAND Introduction (To be changed and completed) Although women achieved the right of voting and gained majority of the rights in the legal world in England, they were many areas where women were treated as inferior gender and were negated of equal rights and opportunities as men. Women were very often relegated to the back as mere housewives in the society and gender disparity was clearly visible in the workplace and in pursuing various careers. History of feminism in England The term “feminist” was first used by the French socialist, Charles Fourier, in the early nineteenth century to refer to a “new women” who is capable of both self-emancipation and social emancipation.1 In England, the term was first employed in the1890s during women’s campaign for individual rights and the claim to citizenship, especially the right to vote. The campaign for suffrage challenged the denial of autonomy to women as citizens and feminists of the period stood for women’s right to ‘a democratic political voice and a social right to resources.’2 However, the meanings of feminism in England extended beyond the campaign for suffrage and encompass such aspects as the segregation and stigmatization of women’s gender roles, celebration of women’s uniqueness and differences, socio-economic and cultural issues of women, equal rights for women, education disparities of women, equality of opportunities and equal wages, antimilitarism and pacific movements, women emancipation movements, and so on. It is worthwhile to analyze the historical growth and development of feminist movements in Great Britain. Organized feminist movements in England can broadly be categorised into two phases-the first wave feminism and the second wave feminism. The first wave feminism consists of feminist movements in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, covering the campaign for suffrage as well as feminist experiences during and after the First and Second World Wars. The second-wave feminism covers feminist initiatives beginning from the mid-or late 1960s and extends itself to modern radical feminism. The nineteenth-century intellectual and economic developments, specifically liberalism and the industrial revolution, paved the way for the first wave feminism.3 While liberalism triggered the growth of liberal feminism the industrial revolution offered middle class women a unique opportunity to work out of home and earn money. Similarly, the theory of relative status deprivation has been partly responsible for the rise of feminism as women strongly felt that they are negated of adequate opportunities whereas their male counterparts had greater opportunities.4 The first wave of womens emancipation movements cover the period from the Enlightenment and the French Revolution to the First and Second World Wars.5 Womens emancipation movements were prevalent in many European countries during the period and the accomplishments of each movement or organization varied from nation to nation and time to time. However, it is sad to find that many of the campaigns of the five wave feminism such as employment opportunities, legal rights, better education, and reform of family life and sexual standards are still relevant for the modern feminism. LeGates, in this respect, observes that the first wave of feminism was white and middleclass oriented; it was so much preoccupied with the suffrage movement and failed to challenge the separate-spheres ideology.6 All this prompt one to conclude that the first wave feminism failed to accomplish so much of its goals. One can find differing political perspectives within feminism. However, feminism, as it was practised in England, can broadly be categorized into liberal, social, cultural, maternal, or radical. Liberal feminism argues for women’s equal opportunities within society to jobs and education and opposes all sorts of discrimination against women.7 Liberal feminists thus stand for equal rights for women and challenge women’s traditional exclusion from political power.8 Liberal feminism stemmed from the classic Liberation of John Stuart Mill and his Subjection of Women and was the driving force behind the great pre-war women’s suffrage campaign. Socialist feminism addresses all sorts of oppression and inequality that women are subjected to within the society. Social feminists condemn all forms of oppression and subordination such as class and race inequality. Cultural feminists, on the other hand, celebrate the differences of women and adopt a women-centred perspective that emphasises the unique experiences of women, their culture and values.9 Maternal feminism was an offshoot of the First and second World wars. Maternal feminists view women as primarily nurturers and carers; they stand for anti-militarism and peace.10 The most recent form of feminism is radical feminism that emphasises both gender differences and fights against all types of male oppression and violence.11 Feminism in Britain is characterised by the interconnectedness of all these strands but in varying degrees. By the 1920s and 1930s, feminism in England turned out to be an all inclusive term that encompassed not only political campaigns for the vote but all sorts of economic, cultural and social rights ranging from equal pay to birth control.12 Modern women’s liberation movements after the Second World War focus on oppressive gender relations and unequal treatment of women with a view to gain self-emancipation of women in all realms. Stereotyped gender expectations of women were prevalent in Britain during the first half the nineteenth century. Like other industrialized Western nations, Great Britain also shared similar code of gender relations that viewed women incapable of managing public realms of politics and business, and better suited to domestic spaces and the raising of children.13 The rhetoric of separate spheres for women governed the discourses of the first half of the nineteenth century. This rhetoric of separate spheres confined women to domestic affairs and restricted them from entering the ‘public sphere’ of business or politics. The separate sphere for working class women consisted of shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundering, sewing, growing vegetables or raising livestock; for middleclass women, expected roles were doing housework, directing their servants or managing the household’s budget; and, aristocratic women were supposed to help their husband mange estate or supervise their servants.14 Similarly, the number of well-educated women were very few and there many illiterate women as well. The patriarchal male dominated society framed public policies in their favour. Married women during the period had fewer rights than single women and they were unable to own property or divorce their abusive husbands.15 It can thus be seen that femininity during the first half of the 19th century was associated with ‘apolitical domesticity’ and ‘incompetence.’16 Feminists and advocates of women emancipation movements had a tedious task to overcome these stereotyped, stigmatised and discriminatory practices that prevailed in the British society. Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792 marked the beginning of feminist discourses in Great Britain. During the first part of the 19th century the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft and Hannah More stressed the intellectual capacities of women, emphasized women rights, and exhorted promotion of women education. Wollstonecraft, in particular emphasized women’s natural rights to self-determination and opposed arbitrary and hereditary rule.17 Paletschek and Bianka Pietrow-ennker point out three factors that accelerated women’s emancipation movements in the first half of the nineteenth century: the spread of literary feminism throughout Europe; mobilization of women in support of nationalism in central, eastern, and south-eastern Europe; and, socio-economic changes brought out by social, political, and religious reform movements in England, France, and Germany.18 The growth of industrialization and the spread of capitalist production processes gave way to the emergence of an industrial middleclass working sector. Similarly, the period was characterised by migration, urbanization, and the erosion of traditional family bonds.19 These factors gave way to social and educational reform movements that considerably changed women’s stereotyped gender roles within the British society. For instance, the redundancy crisis of the 1850s culminated in the promotion of education for women while Matrimonial Causes act of 1857 made divorce more accessible to British women.20 The latter half of the 19th century witnessed dramatic increase in women’s options for paid employment, even though their wages were comparatively lower. During the 1890s women’s options for paid employment consisted of domestic services, factory work, and outwork and it has been estimated that almost 1.5 million women were working as servants and over 500,000 women were working in factories in England and Wales alone during the period.21 Similarly, with the growth of state sponsored education women started gaining jobs in the clerical field, elementary school teaching, nursing and retail sales work even though their wages were only half those of men.22 However, British women faced strong disapproval and discrimination in business, labour force, and employment opportunities as the separate sphere ideology still prevailed in the British society. Women suffrage and World War I Women suffrage movements and the unique experiences of women during World War I were two significant milestones during the first wave of feminism in Britain. The latter part of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century witnessed women’s organized movements for the right to vote in Britain, America, France and Switzerland. However, women’s struggle for the right to vote was not very easily accomplished. In fact, the struggle for suffrage was long and bitter in many nations. For instance, in America, the suffrage movement took 72 years (from 1848 to 1920) to accomplish its goal; seven decades in Switzerland (from 1909 to 1971); and, the longest struggle was in France where the first appeal for suffrage was made before the French revolution in 1787, the bill was introduced in the legislature in 1901, and finally women’s suffrage was given only in 1944.23 In Britain, the suffrage movement was more concentrated; however, it took almost six decades for British feminists to gain limited franchise in 1918 followed by full suffrage in 1928. The Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act of 1856 that permitted divorce from cruel and adulterous husband, the Education act of 1870, and the three Married Women’s Property Acts (giving married women legal right to keep any property earned before and after their marriage) during 1870 and 1882 were the major accomplishments of British first wave feminism before World War I.24 The contributions of the Pankhurst family, namely Emmeline Pankhurst, Sylvia, Christabel Pankhurst and Adela Pankhurst, and Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) to the feminist struggle for suffrage in Britain were remarkable. It is a great coincidence that among the seven million women who voted for the parliamentary election on December 14, 1918 was the 88-year-old Emily Davies, one of two women (the other being Elizabeth Garret Anderson) who in 1866 had presented a women’s suffrage petition to Parliament that marked the beginning of the organized women’s suffrage movement in Britain.25 The right to vote helped many leading feminists to became active in political parties as well. Margaret Bondfield, who argued for the universal women suffrage against limited franchise which she thought would disadvantage the working class women, went on to become the first women minister in Britain. However, the continuity of feminist movements in the first wave feminism was overshadowed by the outbreak of First World War. Women in England could not enjoy the fruits of suffrage and the continuity of feminist initiatives was broken by World War I. The history of feminist movements could have been different if the First World War had not taken place. World War I is another significant milestone in the history of British feminism. In fact, women’s active participation in World War I was capable of challenging their stereotyped gender roles and separate sphere ideology perpetuated by the patriarchal society. Work options for women had tremendously been increased during World War I. Women actively undertook many of the traditionally male jobs that were negated to them. For instance, women’s military support during World War I consisted of their services in the Voluntary Aid detachments (VADs), the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), and the Women’s land Army. Nurses from civilian hospitals were widely recruited to serve at VADs and as Liddington rightly points out World War I offered women “an irresistible opportunity for excitement, travel, and dedicated patriotic service.”26 However, feminists in England did not benefit much from World War I as the Restoration of Pre-war Practices Act in 1919 revoked “the right of women to work in factories, while the enactment of marriage bar in teaching, nursing, and civil service excludes married women from these fields”27 The separate spheres ideology was reinstated and it was regarded as quite unpatriotic and unfeminine for an unmarried woman to intervene in the male world of employment.28 Patriarchal values were restored in the British society and women had to remain submissive in their traditional roles as mothers, wives and housekeepers. As it happens in many conflicts around the world, women in England were seduced into thinking of their place close to the frontline which would possibly provide them an equal share in the post-war running of activities. However, after the war, when the country ceased to need them anymore, they were sent back to the kitchen sinks and were forced to maintain the domestic status quo.29 Olive Schreiner’s seminal book, Woman and Labor (1911), strongly laments this division of labour on the basis of gender differences and she demands that all works should be open to women.30 However, a critical analysis of the First World War scenario clearly demonstrates that feminist movements in Britain did not benefit much positively from their unique war experiences. A positive outcome was the emergence of maternal feminism and women’s stance against militarism and further wars. Maternal feminism and anti-militarism The history of feminism in Britain is closely linked to anti-militarism and campaigns on peaceful endeavours after the First World War. It is not surprising that British women who lost their husbands, fathers, and sons or near ones stood against war and campaigned for peace. Women had also been previously indulged in a number of peace movements varying from the ‘Olive Leaf Circles’ of the 1840s, the formation of Women’s International League in 1915 to the Women’s Peace Crusade during the 1917-18. In the 1930s, the Women’s Co-operative Guild propagated a poignant ‘never again’ campaign against military recruitment of their sons.31 Similar feminist peace activist movements were also at work in other war affected nations as well. For instance, in New York, the Women’s Peace Union (WPU), a non-resistant women’s peace organization, was founded in 192132 The organization also sought constitutional means to abolish another war in the United States to spare young children being sacrificed to the war machine. The maternal feminism, an offshoot of the First World War in Britain, emphasised the nurturer and carer role of women and posed a purely adaptive alternative female ideology as opposed to male-defined values of war, conquest, domination and competition.33 However, maternal feminism suffered serious setbacks with the outbreak of World War II and had a long way to go after the war. World War II (to be edited) The Second World War is a significant turning point in the history of feminism in Britain. Unlike in World War I, the Second World War brought out the complete potential of women in Britain and they could no longer be regarded as weaker or inferior gender. Women came out of their stereotyped cocoons of their gender roles and undertook all sorts of roles that were performed by males. There has been a steady increase in the number of working women prior to and during the Second World War. It has been observed that working women percentage rose from 29 percent in the 1930s to 35 percent at the start of 1940.34 Women proved to be an integral part of the military force, the labour force and in the munitions industry. The Essential Work Order of 1941 made it compulsory for females aged 20-24 to render their non-combatant services in civil defence, the munitions industry, or women’s services.35 Women could also serve the armed forces without arms. Thousands of women worked as navy nurse corps whose role was to nurse the wounded and injured soldiers during the period of the war. Patriotism and heroism prompted millions of women to volunteer to nurse bomb victims. In 1942 the government began to recruit women massively into the civil defence; it has been estimated that there were 212,340 women who entered the civil defence forces by September 1944.36 During the Second World War women were an integral part of the war industry and played a significant role. Many of the war plants started employing women in their plants; British women were widely employed in constructing airplane parts, operated hand drills, made parachutes and ammunitions, and participated in learning many other jobs within a few months. A few women had the opportunity to join the civilian pilot training program and gained the knowledge of operating airplanes. By 1943, they had their training facility in the Women Air force Pilots (WASP), and they gained their opportunity of enjoying training like the male counterparts. As estimated by Vitale, over six million women took jobs for their first time during the War that increased the number of working women to 57 percent; by 1940, women constituted 25 percent of the labour force, and four years later the number increased by 10 percent.37 However, British women found it attractive to work in war plants as the wages in the plants was up to 40 percent higher than those in the service industries or the factories.38 Therefore, women moved into big cities where they took well-paid jobs in the war production centers. They found the new life more enjoyable and stimulating than household work as being employed in the industries was something that they had never been allowed to do so far. Similarly, during World War II, many women engaged themselves in types of works that were completely done by men previously. For instance, “the number of women employed in the engineering industry rose from 97,000 to 602,000 and the proportion rose from 10 to 34 per cent of the workers in the industry, between 1939 and 1943.”39 The Second World War, in fact, removed the ‘stigma of the job-stealer’ as there was sufficient work for both genders.40 Previously, the women’s labour force constituted single women, self-supporting widows, and young wives without any children and divorced women. However, during the period of the war, between 1940 and 1944, the number of married women in the labour force increased significantly for the first time.41 Another remarkable change was the establishment of childcare centers during the war. The government allocated funds for the establishment of childcare centers for women who were employed in the defence force during the war. Children were accepted to these centres; as a result, the working mothers suspended their institutionalized role of child care and preferred to leave children in childcare centers or their close associates.42 Women’s role in the society received much attention at the end of the Second World War as the war gave them an opportunity to unleash their potentials. However, wartime segregation of women’s labour force was evident during the Second World War as well. Even though women were rewarded with reduced hours of work, family allowances, and abolition of the marriage bar in the civil sector, discrimination and inequality reflected in the form of lower wages for women.43 Male trade unionists continued to distinguish the workforce along gender lines. Collective bargaining contracts by male-dominated trade unions created separate job classifications and terms of conditions for both men and women. According to Jaquette, it seemed that the course of women in England made it obvious that the government regarded women as a flexible labour supply that could be pulled out of their homes when they were needed and pushed back when not needed44. As a result, most women were employed on a temporary or part time base and were low paid. However, women who worked in the retail service, secretarial, or manufacturing work retained their employment due to labour shortage. World War II and its impacts on the second wave of feminism (to be edited and completed) World War II had profound impacts on the second wave of feminism even though there was a stagnation of feminist movements soon after the War. The concept of woman as mere housewives fitted only for domestic affairs was thoroughly challenged during the war period. The separate sphere ideology and the stereotyped gender roles of women prior to the war could not be successfully incorporated after the war because of women’s active participation and involvement in all walks of life. Women could no longer be segregated in the employment or labour sector. In fact, World War II offered British women a new social and economic freedom which paved the way for the second wave of feminism during the 1950s and 1960s. Summerfield rightly points out that the Second World War affected British women in three significant ways. For her, World War II put an end to the sexual discrimination of women in employment; brought about a social revolution in the lives of British women as working conditions were reorganized to meet the needs of women workers; and, resulted in a sizeable reduction of married women in paid work.45 Women were left with the options either to join the labour force or fulfill their household responsibilities. Interestingly, many women successfully combined their work with their responsibilities at home. It has also been argued that the Second World War planted the initial seeds of equality between the sexes in Britain which gave way to greater propaganda for equal rights feminism in 1960s and 1970s. Arthur Marwick, who popularised the growth of equality between the sexes, considers the Second World War as a significant turning point in the emancipation of women in Britain as “it led to a ‘new social and economic freedom’ for them, as well as marked change in their consciousness.”46 Women themselves became conscious of their potentials and this positive esteem had been instrumental in many of the social, political and economic feminist movements during the second wave of feminism. The wartime employment was a new psychological experience for British women; it not only undermined sex segregation of jobs but also changed the consciousness of women to move away from their traditional gender roles.47 On the other hand, there were many women who regarded their wartime employment as only a temporary arrangement and preferred domestic life. However, the war had been instrumental in eroding sex segregation that characterised the pre-war economy of Britain. Men’s absence in the job market empowered women and the number of women who entered and remained in the workforce after World War II was higher than that of World War I. Unlike the First World War, the marriage bar was not reinstated after the Second World War. The removal of the marriage bar and the welfare system sponsored by the Labour Party after the war benefited many women who had already been trained in various industries to continue working. While women formed only one-third of the paid workforce in the late nineteenth century one can find a steady increase in women’s workforce during the 1970s in Britain and by 1996 over two-thirds of women enjoyed the benefits of being in paid workforce.48 Similarly, one can find considerable increase in the wages of women after World War II. During the 1970s women’s wages were 60% of those of men which was raised to 80% in the 1990s and 87% by the year 2005.49 Thus, one can clearly find a steady decrease of gender segregation and wage gap since the Second World War in Britain. The social changes brought out by World War II are also worth analyzing. The 1950s to the 1970s a number of remarkable social changes were initiated. The birth of socialist journals in the 1960s contributed to the cause of women. The 1960s saw the rapid spread of Women’s Liberation Movements (WLMs) and witnessed a rise in women’s workers’ strikes. The seven proclaimed goals of the WLMs during the period were equal pay, equal education and job opportunities; free contraception and abortion on demand; free 24 hour community-controlled childcare; legal and financial independence of women; an end to discrimination against lesbians; and, freedom for all women from intimidation by the threat or use of male violence.50 Feminist movements during the 1970s stressed women’s right to self-determination and were aimed at achieving legal and political equality for women. As a result, the 1970s saw the passage of much feminist driven legislation consisting of the Sex Discrimination Act, the Employment Protection Act, and the Equal Pay Act.51 No doubt, feminist undercurrents were so powerful in the nation that it culminated in the most powerful feminist protest against nuclear wars in Britain in 1982-the Greenham protest. The Greenham camp became the “most powerful symbol of a popular refusal to accept nuclear weapons” and gave way to a fresh new style of feminist nonviolent protest that linked personal gender politics and global power politics.52 Despite thousands of arrests, repeated evictions and media silence the Greenham camp survived many winters. Conclusions (to be completed) Bibliography Ahmed, Sara. Transformations : Thinking through Feminism. United Kingdom: Psychology Press, 2000. Alonso, Harriet Hyman. The Women’s Peace Union and the Outlawry of War, 1921-1942. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1989. Bronwen, Levy. “Transformations: Thinking through feminism.” Australian Feminist Studies 14 (2014): 219-222. Franks, Jill. British and Irish Women Writers and the Womens Movement: Six Literary Voices of Their Times. McFarland, 2013. Ikenberry, G John. “War, Guilt, and World Politics After World War II.” Foreign Affairs 92 (2013): 166–166. Jaquette, Jane. “Feminism and the Challenges of the ‘Post-Cold War’ World.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 5, no. 3 (2003): 331-354. LeGates, Marlene. In Their Time: A History of Feminism in Western Society. London: Routledge, 2012. Liddington, Jill. The Long Road to Greenham: Feminism and Anti-Militarism in Britain Since 1820. London: Virago, 1989. Paletschek, Sylvia., and Bianka Pietrow-ennker. Women’s emancipation movements in the nineteenth century. California: Stanford Univ. Press, 2004. Roberts, M. J. D. “Feminism and the State in Later Victorian England.” The Historical Journal 38, no. 1 (1995): 85-110. Rowbotham, Sheila. Women in Movement: Feminism and Social Action. London: Routledge, 2013. Smith, Bonnie G, ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Smith, Harold L, ed. War and Social Change: British Society in the Second World War. Great Britain: Manchester University Press, 1990. Summerfield, Penny. “Research on Women in Britain in the Second World War: An Histrionical essay”, 1998. 20 December 2014. http://www.cegesoma.be/docs/media/chtp_beg/chtp_04/chtp4_011_summerfield.pdf Vickers, Jill. “State Feminism and Political Representation.” Perspectives on Politics 3 (2007): 665-666. Vitale, Patrick. “Wages of War: Manufacturing Nationalism During World War II.” Antipode 43 (2011): 783–819. Wingerden, Sophia A. van. The Womens Suffrage Movement in Britain, 1866-1928. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999. Read More