The First World War transformed the role of women in many European countries. (a) Describe the types of work women undertook during the war. [4] (b) Why did...

(a) Types of work women undertook during the war [4 marks]

Women worked in munitions factories in large numbers, producing shells, bullets, and explosives essential for the war effort. They served as nurses and ambulance drivers near the front lines, including through organisations like the Voluntary Aid Detachments (VADs) and the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY). Women replaced men in civilian occupations including transport (bus and tram driving), banking, clerical work, and postal services. In agriculture, organisations such as the Women's Land Army in Britain helped maintain food production on farms left short of male labour.

(b) Why attitudes towards women's employment changed during the war [6 marks]

• The mass conscription of men into the armed forces created severe labour shortages in essential industries that could only be filled by women.
• Governments actively encouraged women to enter the workforce through propaganda campaigns that presented war work as a patriotic duty.
• Women proved themselves capable of performing skilled industrial work that had previously been considered unsuitable for them, challenging pre-war assumptions about female ability.
• The total nature of the war required full mobilisation of the entire population regardless of gender; the war effort could not succeed with half the workforce excluded.
• Trade unions, initially hostile to women entering their trades out of fear of wage undercutting, gradually accepted women workers out of necessity.
• The visible and essential contribution of women to the war effort made it increasingly difficult to argue that they were incapable of participating in public life.

(c) How important was the war in advancing women's rights in Europe? [10 marks]

The war was significant in advancing women's rights, though its impact should be assessed carefully rather than overstated.

In Britain, women over 30 who met a property qualification gained the vote in 1918 through the Representation of the People Act, and their wartime contribution was widely cited as a factor by contemporary politicians. Women gained suffrage in Germany, Austria, Poland, and several other European countries in the immediate post-war period. The war had demonstrated conclusively that women could perform roles previously reserved for men, from factory work to medical service, undermining traditional arguments about female incapacity.

However, many wartime gains were reversed after 1918. Women were pressured to leave factory and transport jobs and return to domestic roles so that returning soldiers could reclaim their positions. In France, despite women's extensive wartime contribution, they did not gain the vote until 1944. The pre-war suffrage movement had already been campaigning for decades in many countries, and the war may have accelerated rather than caused the extension of voting rights. Working-class women had always worked for wages; the war changed the type of their employment rather than the fact of it.

The war's legacy for women's rights was therefore mixed. It opened doors and challenged assumptions, but it also revealed the limits of wartime progress when peace returned and traditional gender expectations reasserted themselves. The lasting changes were more in attitudes and expectations than in immediate, permanent gains.