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Was the First World War a ‘Total war’ for Britain?
All these changes for women had a knock on effect on many aspects of life. There were many social changes, due to the governments plan to get women to get encourage men to sign up and to encourage them all the way, many women were helping in other methods too. When men were home on leave many women would ‘Give them a god time’ as the men might not live to see them again. By the end of the war the illegitimacy rate was about 6%. Many women had given up prostitution because they had proper jobs. The idea of a good time in that period was sex and alcohol, ‘nice’ girls seemed to be more willing and the country had changed a lot socially.
The war was definitely a total war, it affected social, economic and cultural traditions and the country changed rapidly. It was not all good and many people were not happy with women drinking in pubs. Many working class women would frequently visit pubs, it fitted in with factory work and many workers would go for a pint after work, on Saturday nights Police constables, Bishops and Magistrates stood outside and counted the number of women going in. I think that people in these positions felt their jobs were threatened and they seemed prepared to do whatever they could to stop women having a chance at getting their jobs. They claimed that women were irresponsible and their place was in the home.
In 1918, for once, men had more sexual rights than there are today. Men were accusing many women of trying to have sex with them who had venereal disease. There was a ruling by the government that if a woman with VD had or tried to have sex with a man in the army or navy she could be prosecutes and imprisoned, whereas men with VD would face no punishment. This is clear sexism but there has been a role reversal since then. This has changed very much since then and men who have tried to accuse women of sexually harassing them have lost their cases. It shows that the government at the time were doing their best to keep the women under control. They already were doing many of the men’s jobs and were taking up many of the men’s pastimes. They could not have women stopping men fighting by giving them VD.
With all the demands of working in factories fashion changed to co-inside with the type of work they would be doing. Long skirts would have got in the way so they were shortened and as the war finished this was restored. The petticoat was lost and hats were made smaller, all these changes were [next page]