The Contributions of Women During World War I

Liberty's calling, what's your response?

The progression of women’s roles drastically transformed from the pre-1914 era and blossomed into a period of liberation after the conclusion of World War I. Prior to the Great War, women either lived and worked within the home, served as domestic hands, taught as educators or where trained to assist editorial or administrative offices as secretaries. However, once war sparked in August 1914, the traditionally confiding “woman’s place within the home” altered radically along with the subsequent innovations and societal shifts emerging from the span of World War I.

In the Edwardian era, a woman’s duty consisted primarily of taking care of the home, raising children and participating in the community. Yet, it was rather common for middle-class women to work in factories or on the farm. The Great War demanded an extravagant toll of men, creating an economic gap which women began to fill. As women assumed roles traditionally barred to their gender, their career opportunities and political influence held considerable sway. Many transformed from into fully fledged nurses, journalists and public speakers who rallied unions, political parties and crowds to bring a solution to the needless bloodshed. An example of Edwardian literature and a product of pre-war mentalities, Anne of Green Gables, a piece of literature written by L.M. Montgomery has been adapted to the screen. Within the film, Anne shines as a confident and capable woman working as an author and teacher in the WWI era who ends up serving as a Red Cross volunteer, journalist and pacifistic advocate while seeking to reunite with her fiancé, Gilbert Blythe, a doctor stationed on the Western Front.

A clip detailing Anne's role as a journalist in Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story

Anne's video reveals how journalism and the power of female speakers lead to organized protests which impacted the suffragette movement and added validity to the public opinion of women in the realm of politics and social affairs. 

Propaganda showing women in different sectors of the war effort

 As the government hired and recruited women to partner alongside male soldiers, a significant force of women joined agricultural, industrial and fiscal ventures in order to support the war effort from home. Though women began to replace men in hard labor, such as in the mining, farming and factory industries, most appeared eager to engage in the conflict by enrolling as nurses and war correspondents, using their words and compassion to aid the bleeding and broken hearted.

The practice of “total war” demanded a mobilization of a nation’s entire resources, a financial method of funding the war which allowed for women to adopt economic positions previously limiting female access. For example, The Land Army took thousands of women from the cities and put them to work as “farmerettes” who worked and were paid equally as farmers, wore pants and proved to be such a successful development that the WLA was resurrected during World War II. The war’s impact on their lives most visibly is seen through the absence of male citizens. With the lack of this labor force, national organizations launched to which women clamored in the hopes of serving alongside their male counterparts in order to support their nation by front-line work and through non-combative vantage points.

With the introduction of conscription in 1916, women joined the labor force while others stayed domestic; instead opting to knit socks, raise money by buying war bonds, practicing frugality and through charitable activities. Wealthy women began to run their estates in place of their husband which led to estates being opened as hospitals or orphanages.

Happy Farmerettes of the WLA

In early 1915, women that went abroad to serve worked slightly removed from combat yet still in orderly positions such as medical, police and firefighting task forces. However, their capabilities and the demands of war increased their abilities to serve as ambulance drivers, convoys, medical personnel in the actual trenches and journalist correspondents. Seen as the angels of the battlefield, thousands of women served as nurses and bravely faced bombardments, disease and enemy attacks while aiding their distressed patients. As well as becoming nurses, laborers & members of the Land Army, women even volunteered as air force pilots and surgeons!

Nurses fought not only to save lives but surely saw their service as a means to establish a sense of independence and professionalism. The creation of the Woman’s Armed Forces formed specific roles for women to perform in war zones, such as driving vehicles, providing medical aid, entertaining soldiers through song and dance, serving as base staff and cooks, waitresses, clerks, and journalists; each embracing the innovation to utilize their new found skills. By 1918, millions of women were involved in the war effort.

On November 11, 1918, Armistice Day concluded the tremors initiated by ethnic turmoil in Austria-Hungary four years prior. The war greatly elevated a woman’s station in life yet women were expected to return to the domestic sphere so as to return men’s rightful positions in the work force. Yet the effects of World War I could not be so easily undone. Many young women continued work in male-oriented sectors - secretarial work being the one in which women came to dominate. Fashion changed too due to fabric shortages, which hiked women’s dresses up from their ankles and inspired the wearing of trousers and the trend of short hair just in time for the Jazz Age. However, the most profound impact of WWI for women was in the form of a piece of 1919 legislation which forbid employment discrimination upon the basis of gender as well as the powerful legacy heralded by the Suffragette movement. The organized masses of seasoned women, young and old, having served faithfully out of nationalistic pride and morality, now sought their own liberation. The feminist movement had built momentum and the international conflict poised Europe as well as America for radical change. With the US Constitution's implementation of the 19^th Amendment, women’s suffrage triumphed in the form of the right to vote in 1920.

Conclusively, women performed a variety of diverse services throughout World War I and their involvement gleaned much reward. Despite prejudice and difficulty, many women saw wage increase, access to a wider pool of occupations and education which greatly increased their own societal independence and financial stability. The endeavors of the Suffragist movement fostered Edwardian women to throw off repressive patriarchal structures and societal norms in favor of pursuing equality before the law in the realms of political and economic reform. Feminism, existing prior to WWI, was immensely enhanced by the 1914 conflict which, without the intention of doing so, shaped and cultivated gender equality and further established the authentic upholding of Classical Liberalism which validates the intrinsic value and sociopolitical rights of the individual.

Suggested Reading:

Adie, Katie. Fighting on the Home Front: The Legacy of Women in World War One. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2013.

Atwood, Kathryn J. Women Heroes of World War I: 16 Remarkable Resisters, Soldiers, Spies, and Medics (Women of Action). Chicago, Illinois: Chicago Review Press, 2014.

Hallett, Christine E. Veiled Warriors: Allied Nurses of the First World War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Macdonald, Lyn. The Roses of No Man's Land. London: Joseph, 1980.

Newman, Vivien. We Also Served: The Forgotten Women of the First World War. Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen and Sword History, 2014.

Nicholson, Virginia. Singled Out: How Two Million British Women Survived Without Men After the First World War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Zeinert, Karen. Those Extraordinary Women: WWI. Brookfield, Connecticut: Millbrook Press, 2001.

Fury - Film Critique

Set within the onslaught of WWII, Fury provides a practical and raw depiction of warfare and the cruelty of mankind. Highly inappropriate in terms of language and realistic carnage, Fury succeeds as an emotionally striking film designed for the audience to be overwhelmed by shock along with the experience of the characters surviving in a chaotic swirl of savagery, abuse and forgotten morals.

Appreciatively, the historical accuracy of military units and weaponry were utilized as a main element, examples of WWII era trademarks such as grenades, smoke bombs, mortars, rapid fire and a mass of US tanks proceeding 

Allied fire appears as red lasers to assist the audience's sight

in converging columns through a series of hedgerows weeks after the commencement of D-Day. A prominent example of US firepower was displayed through a glimpse of the air force which passed by overhead while a battalion of Sherman tanks led by tank Fury confronted a German Tiger and an SS brigade as the Allied forces strove to conclude the war by subduing town after town as the unit continued to press on into Germany.

Norman's introduction to Don & tank unit: Fury

However, the direction of the plot intended not to glorify the military but to expose trampled virtue. This theme is emphasized through the demoralization of Norman Ellison, a youth who’s loss of innocence is continually stressed throughout the course of the film. Introduced as a bumbling clerk-typist disgusted by injustice, he is swiftly taught a lesson by his commander, Don "Wardaddy" Collier, who physically forces him to murder a captured German POW, an act signifying the first tainting of his character with his first shedding of blood.

Don orders Norman to finish the POW, arguing that war is "to kill or be killed."

From this point, he is further instructed to engage in improper relations with a German girl, the diminishing of their purity, and finally through the manner in which he strikes down his enemies with artillery fire while chanting curses at the oncoming barrage of Nazi forces before his tank. During the finale, his companions entitled him “machine” as that is what he has become, a machine of war devoid of compassion; the young soldier no longer seeing his enemy as a human being but rather as a target to be extinguished for the sole purpose of an end goal swamped with vengeance.

Norman stands atop his gunner hatch

Surprisingly, Fury highlights that it is but a German soldier who is to be merciful upon Norman. Ironically, the soldier appears to be roughly the same age, a fact that not all Germans are monsters and that many are caught up within the throes of war, similarly sharing Norman’s fate. The German’s compassionate gesture harkens the trace of what Norman has lost; that noble former self he had intended to maintain. His inner commitment to displaying justice regardless of the immorality around him is expounded by how Norman’s terrified eyes stare up in desperation at the German soldier who kindly smiles and deliberately chooses to spare the life of the young boy covered in mud and the blood of his fallen comrades.

An impactful theme laced throughout Fury is the portrayal of tarnished morality. This motif is visible in Norman and through the example of a character Boyd Snicknamed “Bible,” a Christian who poses as the moral compass of the tank. Although Bible displays grace and is a channel pointing towards salvation, he additionally serves as an overpowering presence in certain instances, specifically in the scene where he aloofly sits on the tank, refraining from looting while soldiers plunder the captured town and while at the dinner table in the German home. His presence reminds his platoon leader that they have a duty to respond to, one of which does not allow a pretense of peace while at war.



Boyd "Bible" Swan receives orders that Fury is to proceed further into the Rhine

However, Bible’s consequential nature also falters in the face of moral indignity, wherein he remained silent when there were appropriate times in which he should have stood resolutely for an actual execution of ethics instead of standing disapprovingly by as his company devalue and humiliate the German ladies and in another instance when they cuss, jeer and erupt into praise over the massacre of Nazis with the desire to extend their suffering. Ultimately, Bible’s character offered the dim light of salvation and a purpose beyond the harsh reality experienced in Europe, 1945. His unexpected demise could even be argued as a pardon from God, concealing Bible within Himself in order for the Christian to not experience as much pain in his instant death compared to the lingering doom awaiting those remaining within Fury.

I heard the voice of the Lord calling, "Who will go for Us?" And I said, "Send me."

While this film does not receive a high recommendation, as the characters were difficult to find endearing, I appreciated the director’s attempt to portray a realistic account. Despite the artistic intention, I found myself hardly caring whether they survived for I had become disenchanted by their adverse behavior, deplorable logic, inhumane treatment of women and thoroughly disgusted at the militant culture that subjected its own soldiers to promote such brutality to simply prove the point that its either your death or your enemy’s in war, regardless of how practical and base that notion is.

Conclusively, Fury presents a harsh exposé of American soldiers during WWII – showing how a fierce, typically drunk and foul-mouthed, mismatched band of soldiers were able to loosely unify around the tank that they were willing to sweat, bleed and die within in order to protect one another and preserve the pursuit championed by the Allied forces. The film climaxes with Norman being heralded as a hero yet such praise starkly resonates with the fact that they are indeed heroes, but heroes that compromised their morality for the sake of unrealized ideals accomplished through anything but just means due to succumbing to animalistic tendencies and debase ethics justified by war. Their sacrifice, no matter how gallant a demise, does not justify previous brutality and the battalion’s blatant disregard of righteousness.