Effect of War on Women: Emancipation or Bondage to Tradition - Article Example

Effect of War on Women: Emancipation or Bondage to Tradition? The historical feuding of nations all over the world during the Second World War has considerably affected the status of women. The world has witnessed the emergence of their strengths and vulnerabilities at a critical time when survival was desperately the only motivation to go on. A study of this is vital to understand how women coped and adapted their lives to juggle a work and home life without their husbands. When World War Two broke out, it was a signal that turbulent times were ahead. Men were recruited to fight for their countries. Women had no choice but to let go of their men. It was unknown to everyone what the future will bring, but when the war broke out, it seemed that a bleak tomorrow threatened the world. Women, in particular, assailed by a series of unending attacks to their humanity and had to claw at what appears to be a hint of hope for survival. Class distinctions broke down and the formerly rich women adjusted to life’s painful realities that they had to live like the rest of the commoners. “Mass observation surveys conducted during 1941 found that many who advocated conscription believed it would force ‘idle rich girls’ to work.” (Smith, 1986, p. 215) The war demanded enormous manpower, not just in the armed forces, but also in industry. Millions of men joined the forces, which left many industries without a satisfactory workforce. The government realised that this shortfall had to be filled, approximately one and a half million workers were needed in munitions alone and it was vital to keep up the production of essential wartime machinery and equipment. The government therefore, took the decision to draft women into ‘men’s’ jobs, just as they had done during the First World War, in an attempt to keep production at a steady level. The new realities faced by the women necessitated that they likewise take part in the war effort in any capacity they can. Most women had to leave their homes to work in a variety of occupations. The ‘Registration of Employment Order’ was introduced in the spring of 1941, forcing everyone to declare their existing work-based situation, which allowed the government to record the details of those that needed directing into vital war work. This encouraged approximately eighty-seven thousand women into work in the auxiliary services and munitions. However, there was still a shortage of people undertaking vital war work and, as a result of this, the government introduced the National Service Number Two Act in December 1941, which made the conscription of unmarried and childless women aged twenty to thirty mandatory. Many women had mixed feelings about this. They could be posted anywhere in the country, miles away from their families, often for the very first time. Some were pleased with the opportunity to escape and explore; others were unhappy about being forced to leave their homes and loved ones behind. Millions of married women and women over thirty remained exempt from obligatory conscription. Some took up voluntary war work either in the women’s institute, Salvation Army or Red Cross in a bid to contribute towards the war effort. However, many of the women in this category, particularly those who had chosen not to evacuate their offspring, now needed extra income to substitute the financial gap created by their husbands’ absence. Monetary help did arrive with the creation of the servicemen’s wives’ allowance, but the amount they received was usually too inadequate to meet their needs. “A 1942 survey showed that wives of servicemen living alone with children in Leeds owed on average nearly half their weekly allowances” (Summerfield, 2000, p. 310). The ever-increasing demand for manpower eventually forced the initially hesitant government to extend conscription to include married women and those up to the age of forty-three in the latter half of 1941. “Arthur Marwick argues that the war had caused employers to change their opinion in favor of married women as employees, whereas Harold smith argues that most employers still believed that married women had ‘definite disadvantages’ as workers” (Summerfield, 1988, p. 113). Penny Summerfield finds a compromise between the two: “In as far as one can draw a general picture it seems to be that married women had been recruited hesitantly in the course of the war, and that they were retained reluctantly at its end by all employers apart from a few who regarded them as steadier and more productive than ‘flighty’ single women” (Summerfield, 1988, p. 113) It is true that women had to adapt to a new androgynous ideal often without any help. “Women could be prosecuted for avoiding work in ‘men’s jobs’ for the war effort if they did not come within one of the exemption categories, but men were given no encouragement to take a share of ‘women’s work’ in the home” (Gledhill & Swanson, 1996, p.39). Discrimination was also commonplace within the working environment. Women were not deemed as clever or as physically strong as their male counterparts, and as a result, were often harassed, by their bosses and trade unionists. They therefore, had to fight to be taken seriously because their male counterparts were often very suspicious of them and found their appearance in work overalls and dungarees distasteful. However, women more often than not disproved men’s suspicions. Men were surprised at the skills women were learning at such a fast rate that they were usually at a loss as to what orders to give them. “Members of the ATS did not get the glamour jobs - they acted as drivers, worked in mess halls where many had to peel potatoes, acted a cleaners and they worked on anti-aircraft guns. But an order by Winston Churchill forbade ATS ladies from actually firing an AA gun as he felt that they would not be able to cope with the knowledge that they might have shot down and killed young German men. His attitude was odd as ATS ladies were allowed to track a plane, fuse the shells and be there when the firing cord was pulled……”(Trueman, 2000). It was a time for women to shine despite the discrimination they were experiencing. When no other men were available, women were given significant tasks. “Women were also used as secret agents. They were members of SOE (Special Operations Executive) and were usually parachuted into occupied France or landed in special Lysander planes. Their work was exceptionally dangerous as just one slip could lead to capture, torture and death. Their work was to find out all that they could to support the Allies for the planned landings in Normandy in June 1944. The most famous female SOE members were Violette Szabo and Odette Churchill. Both were awarded the George Cross for the work they did - the George Cross is the highest bravery award that a civilian can get. Both were captured and tortured. Violette Szabo was murdered by the Gestapo while Odette Churchill survived the war” (Roberts, n.d.). Women were initially trained to the same standard as men, but employers eventually didn’t want to hire fully trained women because they received better pay, which upset the trained male workers, causing friction in the workplace. The government tried to remedy this problem by reducing the length of training courses for women, which inevitably resulted in the occurrence of work-based accidents among women. The government also entered into the ‘relaxation agreements’ with trade unionists, which stated that women could undertake men’s jobs as long as they were regarded as temporary and were paid the same as men. The predominantly male trade unions, therefore, initially looked like they truly wanted equal pay and equality for women, but in reality, they were merely trying to protect the traditional working rights of men. Yet, when faced with discrimination, the majority of women continued to work hard to gain their superiors’ respect and often carried out their jobs to a higher standard than their male equivalents. The question of whether war had an emancipating effect on women remains to be a constant point of debate among historians. True, the war brought out the worse and the best in everybody, including women whose strengths and potentials for a variety of skills surfaced at a time when it was so badly needed, to the surprise of everybody. However, the kind of emancipation sought is one from the imprisonment in traditional roles of women being the “weaker sex” relegated to the care and nurturance of the home and family, whose brains and brawn were not necessary in the carrying out of such roles. Society seems to ascribe a lower status on women’s roles as compared to men’s. Penelope Summerfield (1988) ponders, “Was the war’s ‘most important legacy for women’ really ‘a strengthening of traditional sex roles rather than the emergence of new roles?” (Summerfield, 1988, p. 50). One can more pointedly phrase the question as “Was the effect of war on women emancipation?.....or diversion?” Did the war finally free the women from long-held stereotypes of them, or did it just give the women a taste of a different world away from home and showed them their personal possibilities before sending them back home where they truly belong? Summerfield concludes that with women who have had a bite of paid employment, and have no intentions of having it as a lifetime diet, look forward to resuming their role as full-time homemakers but admit that they will never be the same sort of housewife they were pre-war. Further, Summerfield’s analysis of the indicators of change suggests that the wars did not effect significant changes in terms of equality or difference to women categorically. Still, personal accounts of individual women prove how important the wars were to them as it transformed all other aspects of their lives. Arthur Marwick (1990) thinks otherwise. His analysis favors war as a turning point in the emancipation of women. Their changed roles “led to a ‘new social and economic freedom’ for them as well as a marked change in their consciousness.”(Smith, 1986, p. 208). He claims that although women lived in an atmosphere of suffering and tribulation, their perceptions made them realize that they needed to get out of established patterns of behavior they have been wired to do Harold Smith (1986) prefers to stay on the other side of the spectrum. Upon reviewing Marwick’s analysis, he concludes that the war did not have an emancipating effect on women, in fact it further reinforced traditional roles. He even goes on to say that such reinforcement contributed to the sense of oppression some women experienced in the post-war period. Since returning soldiers were geared up to go back to their role as breadwinners after the war and women were expected to likewise resume their homebound duties, wives were made economically dependent upon their husbands. Women war workers’ boredom at work was mostly caused by the low-level nature of their work involving routine repetition. It was not challenging their innate potentials. The reluctant move to mobilize the nation’s womanpower was out of necessity and not out of acknowledgement of women’s worthiness. Once they were not needed anymore, when war ended, they were disposed of. Providing a middle ground between the strong, opposing views of Marwick and Smith, Summerfield (1998) attempts to point to an agreeable direction. It was an astonishing and serendipitous revelation that women are able to combine work, marriage and motherhood without seriously undermining their expected home responsibilities. A woman’s participation in the war effort did not doom conventional sexual divisions of labour while compensating her work with much needed payment without threatening her domestic duties. This multi-faceted role also gave her a feeling of personal importance which is mostly taken for granted by the people around her. Perhaps the fact that Summerfield is a woman gives her an edge in understanding the effects of war on the daughters of Eve. Going back to her question of what the most important legacy of war is to women, the strengthening of traditional sex roles or the emergence of new roles, this paper has concluded that it is both. How about the general effect of war of women – not emancipation from the bondage of gender stereotype, as the fight is still on for gender equity. Yes, temporary diversion from long-held roles. Most importantly, war’s effect and legacy on women is EMPOWERMENT. Such a legacy may be used to finally attain the emancipation most women desire. References Gledhill, A. and Swanson, G. (1996) Nationalising Femininity: Culture, Sexuality and British Cinema in the Second World War, 1st edit Manchester uni press, Manchester Marwick, A. (1990) War and Social Change in the Twentieth Century, 7th edit London: Macmillan Edu ltd, Roberts, H.T.(n.d.) The ATS in the Desert: Part I taken from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/88/a2065088.shtml, n.p. Smith, H.L.(1986) War and Social Change, Manchester University Press, Manchester Summerfield, P.(1998) Reconstructing Women’s Wartime Lives, 1st edit Manchester: Manchester Uni Press Summerfield, P., in Purvis, J.(2000), Women’s History: Britain, 1850 – 1945, London Trueman, C.(2000), Women in World War Two taken from http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/women_WW2.htm Read More