World War one was a life changing event that occurred
everywhere. Especially for women, they rapidly integrated into society and
became more noticeable. Women were too weak to have a major impact in life before
the war, in any country in the world. However that changed around 1914. It’s
important to see that if it hadn’t been for the war, women would have been
marginalized for a longer period of time, and no one would have known what they
were capable of. Even though it seemed that they were in demand more during the
war, than before or after. So in what way did world war one impact women’s role
in Russia and England? Well apart from the fact that they were nationalistic and
were working for their country, they managed to join the army and have more
opportunities and rights than they did before. They felt equal for once, that
they were capable of doing what men could do and that possibly gave them
courage and hope. Even though the idea of being shot or dead isn’t so welcoming
it was a step to a better status in society. Today women have more rights and
are in better living conditions than before, yet they are still considered
weaker and lower than men. However we can’t tell if the war really impacted
women’s role or simply made use of women at the time since there was no other
options unlike today, we have machines that can do the work instead.
In Russia, women were looked down upon just like every other
country however when the war took place, women became more respected. Women
were also nurses during the war. They also had the women’s suffrage act that
basically meant that men and women were equal, thus if men had to go to war, so
did women. They even had their hair cut off just like men and wore army
outfits. Women joined the legion of death or the “woman battalion”. An example
of woman history would be Yashka or Maria Bochkareva, a female soldier that had
joined the army in 1914. She was very influential that she led the women’s
legion of death. She was also for the suffrage act as well as freedom of
expression in newspapers. Even though she had a rough childhood with an
alcoholic father and several unsuccessful marriages, she was a strong woman
that survived in the war until 1917. For
a militaristic point of view, she would have been considered a good soldier but
from a woman’s point of view she would be a hero due to all her accomplishments.
A fearless female that fought for her country and proved that men and women
should be equal. Another example is Kati Dadeshkeliani, she
joined the army in Russia and was an ambulance driver. She was also wounded yet
she survived. Sometime after the war, around 1921 she moved to Paris. She wrote
a book which was about her experiences in the war. Judging by Kati’s
actions and moving to Paris it seemed as if there were barely any drastic
changes after 1918, women probably went back to their previous jobs or being housewives
taking care of family since men wanted their jobs back most probably. So really
the war only raised awareness of what women are able of accomplishing. We don’t
see as much change occurring until much later possibly around late 1920’s.
Meanwhile in England women had minor jobs like nursing,
teaching or simple “domestic labor”. They also were able to work in factories
but they were paid less than men and they had simple jobs. That changed when
the war began, as more men left women had to replace them in factories, mines,
farms and other jobs. Eventually women became responsible of cooking,
storekeeping, printing, machine maintenance, work in clerks and driving trucks
or ambulances. Most nurses were taken to the front to serve there and provide
the required care. Soldiers were being severely injured that they had little chance
of survival if they were to be transported back to hospitals in infected
trains. While back in the cities, women working in factories suffered from
T&T poisoning which lead to death. The symptoms were cold, headaches,
ginger hair and yellow faces. That was a great sacrifice a woman can make for
her country, even though she wasn’t being directly shot or out at the fronts,
they seemed to do more for their country. The fact that they were eager to help
in producing hazardous new weapons while they were still being developed was a
great sacrifice that military or political historians need to consider and
women should look up to. Around 1 million women worked in ammunition factories
and 2 million or 73% of workers by 1917 were women. But what difference did that
make?* Working so hard during the war and after, women were back at the start.
married women were not allowed to work, and many males were angry with women
for taking over their jobs meaning that a large amount of women were fired
after in order for these returning soldiers to have their work back. So the war
was rather pointless, it didn’t change society that much for women especially
not at the end of the war. It seems as if women were being used to carry out
daily tasks that government needed which men were unavailable to do. Or maybe
in England life after war wasn’t any different from before.
Women in Russia and England played an important role in the
war that didn’t really help much afterwards. Yet their roles were completely
different. Russia managed to have some form of equality where women also fought
alongside men while England allowed women to work at the fronts only as nurses
and back at home at any job that required employees. The similarity between
England and Russia was that before and after the war women where disregarded.
However what occurred during the war was more important. There was more
potential for Russia to have an equal society than England due to the suffrage
act, but it didn’t make a difference because a cause for the act’s failure was after
the war, the women’s battalion was split. Russia females were allowed to be
pilots as well; a famous Russian pilot was Princess Eugenie, who was related to
imperial family however when the war was over, she was “demobilized” another
real reason proving failures of the act, while the auspicious reason was
because she had connections to imperial family and October revolutionists
didn’t like that. It’s a little challenging to compare the roles of women in
two different countries without going into specific details of their work but
the idea was that during the war life was different in both countries and at
the end it was the same.
In conclusion women suffered a lot during the war. The
little things they did and the sacrifices they made was what counted the most.
Without their support, in England for example, the factories wouldn’t have been
able to produce weapons to defend themselves. Thus Germany or any of the
Central powers would have had more chances of winning the war. Likewise in
Russia, if the women didn’t join the military and asked to be equal, Russian
military wouldn’t have had as much backup forces available since their
technology was behind and they lost a lot of soldiers during the war. If it
weren’t for these women who risked their lives whether they were out on the
fronts fighting or suffocating from a poisonous atmosphere in a weapons
factory, they couldn’t have succeeded in the war. So did the war make much of a
difference for women? During the war it did but afterwards life went back to
normal almost as if nothing had happened. Maybe for the time being there was
some change which influenced society to give women a higher status later on in
the years. In some way it makes sense, change doesn’t occur straight away, at
the time it probably wasn’t as easy to get accustomed to having a work partner
that was a female therefore people needed time. It seems that everything women
had to go through was rather ineffective in the end but eventually years after
the war it paid off. For example the U.S gave women the right to vote sometime
around 1920. Even though it’s a different country and a different continent, a
woman’s life in Russia or England would have been similar to life in the U.S. The
war did change people’s perspectives on women’s abilities yet society needed
it’s time to change.
