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The Impact that the Second World War Had on the Lives of Women in Britain

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The Impact that the Second World War Had on the Lives of Women in Britain When Hitler invaded Poland on the 3rd September in 1939, Britain declared war on Germany. Thousands of men from across Britain were sent of to the theatre of war in Europe. This left a vacuum in the workforce that needed to be filled and the best available resource was women. The role of women in society had changed considerably in the inter-war years between 1918-1939. Women had now achieved a greater equality with men, for example in 1928 they were fully enfranchised, however, there were many areas where the role of women were still not fully accepted in particular, the workforce. For women employed by the armed …show more content…

Even though women were able to work in the armed forces it was very hard for a lot of women to gain respect from their fellow work colleagues as most were seen as a ‘duty bicycle’ rather than as a colleague. This then caused the problem of sexual harassment for most women, for example one woman, who refused to do sexual favours for her sergeant, had her put up on charge because of it. Another problem was that their work colleagues refused to believe that women were capable of doing the jobs and the tasks set for them and so were given a hard time constantly because of this, for example, a sergeant once asked for a line up from the women and he said they could not be aligned properly because their breasts stuck out at different angles making it impossible for the sergeant to align them. This is just one of the excuses their colleagues made about the women being unfit for their jobs. Even though the government new of the problems between the men and women in the workforce together in 1941 the government called up all single women between the ages of 20 and 30 and it was believed that a lot of them would soon be in anti-aircraft crews along with men. By now the government had plans for 1,700,000 women to be involved in the war this included a lot of the to be involved in factory work. In March 1941 Ernest Bevin, the minister of labour

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