Women in the First World War: directions and perspectives

The fatality of the Great War collapsed the dreams that were built in the society of the Belle Epoque: imperialist expansion and faith in progress had fallen squarely on the population and now even went against it. The war of all against all shattered this past hope. The outbreak of war radically transformed the society of the time.

The total war affected the population in a magnitude that had never happened before and from one position or another, in trenches or factories, they were all war fighters. That is, the front and the rear played different roles, but both aimed at the same goal: to win the war, contributing with their individual actions to extolling the patriotic values ​​that burst so forcefully in the second decade of the 20th century.

At first, the war was received with fervour, due to the thrust of the nationalisms gestated in the 19th century, so there was a rapid and effective mobilization both socially and specifically for war. In the end, there was deep criticism and rejection from within, due to the war of attrition (Villares and Bahamonde, 2016: 259-261).

There were many novelties that brought the passage of the war through Europe. The new weapons, favored by the industrialization processes, accompanied in turn by technological progress, and the new communications made the meaning of war transformed. In accordance with the profound changes in the way of waging war and the very scale of it that the conflict reached, new horizons emerged from the social aspect that were the result of war needs and the new panorama that ensued in 1914.

Among the many changes, we cover in this article what is related to the figure of women during the war period. Were there changes in what is known as the female paradigm? Were they long lasting or did they simply obey the need of a specific moment? What repercussions did they have?

The Great War and the “nationalization” of women

It is common to talk about “sacred union” between social classes and political parties during the First World War as a symbol of adhesion of all the inhabitants of the same country for the national victory within the blocks that faced each other. However, less is often said about the union between the sexes, which were previously radically separated between the private and public spheres. Now was the time for women to join men in the public sphere and even come to replace them by the war dynamic itself: it was no longer just a matter of stabilizing the previous economy, but also to attend to the growing economy of war.

The First World War, as the first large-scale war event of the 20th century, has been studied (and continues to be) profusely, especially from the military aspect: battles, techniques, weapons… However, studies on the Great War, Paradoxically speaking, they have very different fronts open. It is undeniable that 1914 opened an internal front that saw the necessary involvement of all in the conflict: we no longer speak only of combatants in the front line of battle, but also of the rear.

War demands transformed the social organization, as well as its strongly hierarchical internal structures. From the specific case of women, there were some mutations of high relevance that were presented as a conjuncture in the traditional gender roles and the tasks entrusted by society. With respect to “new female paradigm, Millicent Garrett Fawcett (British political activist for women’s rights) said that the war knew women as servants and made them free. In this sense, it is why historiography has sometimes described the First World War as an instrument for the emancipation of women. (Padilla Castillo and Rodríguez Torres, 2013: 201).

This must-have moment in first-wave feminism is sometimes pushed aside, or simply skipped over in favor of suffrage movements. To tell the truth, the years of the war meant a break in women’s claims, on educational and political rights that arose under the protection of democratic liberalism that called for freedom and equality among men, but as Olympe de Gouges, liberal demands were not fully transferred to women. Despite this, although the feminist mobilizations receded into the background (believing at first that it was going to be a quick war), now they had another task: women as subjects who fight for their nation and collaborate with their male companions to win the war, thus preventing the collapse of the country. It is what has been known in historiography as the nationalization of women. In this way, feminism was shaken by the war and, for example, in France some moderate feminist magazines such as La Française, alluded to this in their issues: “While the test our country is undergoing lasts, no one will be allowed to speak of their rights; with respect to him, we only have duties” (quoted in Thébaud, 2000: 51).

Thus, as paradoxical as it sounds, feminists sacrificed their own struggles and protests in favor of the nation as a whole in danger of war; however, by becoming involved in the tasks entrusted to men, the social perspective of women as weak and incapable beings was changed. Now they worked in the factories and were part of tasks that, perhaps if it had not been for the multiple warlike needs, they would not have been able to have an opportunity of such caliber to get their quick access and recognition to the public sphere. In addition, at that time the State saw the need to train them, to educate them… proposals in which resided the spirit of nationalizing women, as mothers or future mothers who will educate their children in patriotic values.

The entry of women into the labor market meant that they were seen as active subjects of the population, not singularly anchored in domestic tasks. Now they contributed to the organization of the national product, in effect, to a war economy that balanced between narrow limits. The belligerent countries, both from the Triple Alliance bloc and from the Triple Entente, saw this process of inserting women into the world of work as a necessity in times of war, which was not forced but rather obeyed an international dynamic that broke with traditional gender roles for the good of the nation. Great Britain, France and Germany are the ones that stand out the most in this process of labor insertion, with all the processes that are shown to be intrinsic to this right. Nor can we forget how in the Soviet Union women became an indispensable factor in the construction of a new socialist homeland (Pérez Garzón, 2012: 113). In short, there were multiple rhythms of transformation in what concerns the social, with resistance or faster advances favored by the conjuncture of the war, however, they are advances that were irreversible in the historical process.

“These women are doing their part. Learn to make ammunition

Before the first rumblings of war sounded and the belligerent countries plunged headlong into a “quick war”, the role of women in the public sphere as an active subject was practically invisible. It is incorrect and inaccurate to say that women did not enter the workforce until the First World War if some precautions are not taken in what has been said.

Above all, it must always be borne in mind that women, like men, have been immersed in the labor sphere in the same way, but to different degrees. In general, men earned their salary in the public sphere, while women tackled domestic tasks, being able to combine them with different forms of remuneration between the private and the public. For this reason, when we sometimes refer to the “employment emancipation” of women, it must be taken into account that it is done in a context in which, initially, the female subject is conceived as a be reproductive as well as non-productive. However, due to different transformations, society will give him the role as a productive agent (although this will not remove the cataloging of continuing to be a reproductive subject).

The 20th century opens with a front of paradigms inherited from the last century: industrial development, proletarianization and the rural exodus stand out, phenomena that, in turn, cannot be understood in isolation. At this point, a growing workforce was necessary at the same time as a gradual process of salary reduction was created, in precarious conditions with a majority of men, but also with the presence of women and children.

It is estimated that some 65 million men were mobilized, of which nine million died on the front (Villares and Bahamonde, 2016: 205). Many others were wounded and, in addition to the seven million deaths at the front, there was an inordinate amount of losses in the rear due to the direct and indirect cause of the armed conflict. As the German expressionist painter Otto Dix portrayed in his oil paintings, the harshness of war was no longer just a matter of elites fighting for certain territories: the pain and agitation of war was a problem and worried the whole of society, from the military to the civilians. It had become a mass war, so the mobilization was absolute.

Demographic declines and migratory movements, to fight at the front and to meet the needs of all kinds of other allied places, made women resort to supplant all these shortcomings. This is how, to maintain the dynamics of war, women were called to fill the vacancies in the jobs that men had occupied before leaving for the trenches. As has been said, when considering that the confrontation was going to be a “blitzkrieg”, women were seen as a substitution element of man and not competitive, thinking that it would only be a temporary medicine and that after the catastrophe, the woman would return to “her own work”.

It is in this way that the first massive incorporation of the female subject into the productive world takes place. There was no time to look at what types of jobs were suitable for traditional roles, and the speed of the demands of the war spoke for itself so that women were also recognized as part of paid workers.

The belligerent countries increased the female workforce during the war years. In the case of Great Britain, around one and a half million women entered the world of work, going from the number of employees of 24% in 1914 to 37% in 1918 (Pérez Garzón, 2012: 118).

The growing productivity in the arms industry made the governments of…