The Role of Women in World War I

The new role of women during the interwar period following the First World War permanently disrupted the social structure of the traditional family. This role would challenge all traditional views of women as being helpless and unable to do the work of their male counterparts, giving rise to the self-sufficient and liberated young woman with her own place in the work force making her own money. These changing times created a reality that many were not able to deal with . However, many of these same people that were dismayed with a woman leaving "her place" and moving out into reality easily forget the support efforts women exercised with extreme efficiency in World War I. These efforts would be critical to an allied victory in World War I as well as the social well being of future generations of women. Right up to the outbreak of World War I, feminists on both sides pledged themselves to peace, in international women's solidarity. Within months of the war's outbreak, however, "all the major feminist groups of the belligerents had given a new pledge - to support their respective governments." Campaigners for women's suffrage quickly became avid patriots and organizers of women in support of the war effort. Many of these feminists hoped that nationalistic support of the conflict would improve the prospects for women's suffrage after the war, and this came true in a number of countries. To many women, their service in the First World War would be the justification they needed in order to move out of the patriarchal family shadows and begin a new era that would give rise to the new woman and signal the end of matriarchal censorship.

The matriarchal censorship in question is that of the woman who served in the First World War, either at the front line or at the war factories producing supplies for the war effort. Many of these women were pushed aside once the war ended in favor of the traditional relationships that was the mainstay before the war, which included being the primary caretaker of the home and the children. This beginning of the end of matriarchal censorship marked the birth of a movement in which the voice of women would be finally heard outside of the immediate families. The more than 25,000 US women who served in Europe in World War I helped nurse the wounded, provided food and other supplies to the military, served as telephone operators, entertained troops, and worked as journalists. Many of these women were self-selected, finding their own work, improvised their own tools, and argued, swayed, and begged for supplies. These women, motivated by an amalgamation of patriotism and a desire to escape a monotonous existence, frequently joined up dressed as men. A few, however, served openly as women primarily because the Czarist government lacked a regular policy on female combatants. Women such as Harriot Stanton Blatch, with the endorsement of President Teddy Roosevelt, urged American women and the government alike to "mobilize woman-power" for World War I. One reason for US women to support the war effort, she argued, was the character of Prussian culture which glorified brute force, supported men's domination of women, and treated children harshly. To men dubious of women's entry into the labor force, Blatch argued "every muscle, every brain, must be mobilized if the national aim is to be achieved." Blatch praised women's contributions in Britain, where participating in the war effort had made women "capable, bright-eyed, happy." She described England as "a world of women - women in uniforms; nurses, messengers, porters, elevator hands, tram conductors, bank clerks, bookkeepers, shop attendants. Even a woman doing womanly work, dusting a room for the good of her country. They were happy in their work, happy in the thought of rendering service, so happy that the poignancy of individual loss was carried more easily." This happiness seemed uncertain as a general intention, but for some individuals it must have been true. One woman wrote that she was "nearly mad with joy" at being sent to Serbia to do war work. Women at the front used very different language than those at home - receiving, in the words of one, "something hidden and secret and supremely urgent; you are in another world, and given new senses and a new soul."

This opportunity to provide evidence of worth outside of the family home would be an opportunity women would not take lightly. These events offered a chance at redemption and a crucial opening for women to gain greater freedom of choice. However, as much as the war shook up gender relations, it would be a permanent fixture until nearly fifty years later. Individual British women in the World Wars found new freedoms and opportunities in wartime - "like being let out of a cage," in one woman's words. However, gender changes were short-lived. "Attitudes towards women's roles at home and at work remained remarkably consistent over nearly fifty years. Both wars put conservative, traditional views about gender roles under strain, but no enduring transformation occurred as resentment towards women in male-dominated jobs, the devaluation of female labor, and the female-only responsibility for home life became the social norm well past the end of the First World War.

The renovation of social gender norms in Britain after World War I inhibited women's roles and armored the dogma of motherhood, as the feminist movement would not regain the position as a mass organization it had held before the war. Where prewar feminists had fought against different creations of masculinity and femininity, feminists in the interwar period gradually "accepted theories of sexual difference that helped to advance notions of separate spheres." After the "horrific events" of World War I, British society "sought above all to reestablish a sense of peace and security" and this excluded the uncensored feminism of the prewar years, commanding instead a feminism of separate spheres to avoid "provoking the men to anger." Perhaps it was not the negative social perception that the feminist movement feared, but rather the physical and emotional violence that would be reaped upon them by men.

In spite of the possible physical abuses of liberated women by men, one unique example of gender cooperation was that of the Russian Army and Maria Botchkareva in World War I. Botchkareva, a 25-year-old peasant girl with a history of being physically abused by men, was the leader of the most famous group of female Russian soldiers commonly known as the "Battalion of Death." Botchkareva began as an individual soldier in the Russian army, managing to get permission from the Czar to enlist as a regular soldier. After fighting off the frequent sexual advances and mockery of her male comrades, she eventually won their respect after serving with them in battle. Botchkareva's autobiography describes several horrendous battle scenes in which most of her fellow soldiers were killed running towards German machine-gun positions, and one in which she bayoneted a German soldier to death. After two different failed attacks, she spent many hours crawling under German fire to pull her wounded comrades back to safety, possibly saving hundreds of lives in the course of her service at the front. She was seriously wounded several times but always returned to her unit after recovering. Such accounts of bravery were not publicized very often by a male dominated press that shared the views of many in society that a woman had no place on the battlefield, yet alone outside of the home.

Those women who did not partake in the great scourge of war contributed in other ways that were instrumental to the allied victory. Historian Eric Leed argues that World War I created for women "an enormously expanded variety of escape routes from the restrictions of the private family" because the war caused "the collapse of those established, traditional distinctions" that had restricted women. A Punch cartoon of the time shows a soldier's wife who receives an allowance: "This war is heaven - twenty-five shillings a week and no husband bothering about!" World War I can be credited with winning women both the vote and a "new liberation" in fashion and behavior, which included common day atrocities such as smoking, bobbed hair, short skirts, and self-gratification. But for British women war workers in World War I, "no doubt conditions varied a lot." Conditions worsened over time, making 1917-18 "the hardest year of the war for civilians," especially in the pan-European 1918 influenza epidemic. Some women complained of barracks-like living accommodations with poor food and little heat, whereas others found their lodging clean, if crowded, and occasionally even comfortable. Most often, though, the woman war worker had "little in her life now except work and sleep." Work shifts of 10-12 hours were "not uncommon." The environments in the factories were, for women, an "alien environment" of deafening clatter and depressing filth, encased by blacked-out windows. The fear that women may become masculine in nature performing the duties of the men at war may have been another fear of a society abhorring change. The traditional society was not willing to accept this seemingly deviant behavior as sign for things to come, but rather as a means to an end.

The First World War marked the beginning of change for all members of society. The women's movement was at it's infant stage and would gain steam over the course of the next fifty years as women were to be seen as more than just homemakers. Society still would show resistance, especially in homes that are religiously conservative or follow the traditional patriarchal dominated family structure. However, in spite of a few exceptions to the movement, the new woman does exist; not because they were invented in a time of need, but rather because society dropped its veil of censorship on the ideas and physical capabilities of women. Those women who served as the catalyst to fuel this change in the way society views the role of women should be commended. Once a group of people breaks the chains of censorship, the endless possibilities of success are eminent.