Women and Modern Warfare

Long before the war had started, women had been pressuring politicians for a greater role in the managing of things. Women were in the workforce by 1900, but often in career limiting jobs. Most, accept the most poor, were often pushed out of work once they were married. However, with the war, these old Victorian attitudes crumbled. In the beginning in 1914, women were at first willing to simply serve as “cheerleaders” and promote the enlistment of their fathers, brothers, sons and husbands. This soon changed as gaps in the workforce from the departed soldiers needed to be filled and women demanded to be given these jobs.

In 1916, the government began to actively recruit single women to work in the war effort. Over 30,000 started working in war related industries (ammunition and weapons manufacturing). In the workforce, they faced discrimination in the form of wages. Despite the fact that they worked the same jobs and the same number of hours as men, they received less pay. Thousands also took a more active role and volunteered as nurses to serve in hospitals in England and France. Forty –seven became casualties of the war.

By 1917, the Canadian war effort was dependant on the continued help from women. By now women had come to realize the position they held and saw their opportunity for attaining a long sought after goal – enfranchisement. The Suffrage Movement had been at least twenty years old by 1917, but it had not been able to convince a male dominated society that women deserved a voice in government and politics. The war lent momentum to the Suffrage Movement. In Canada, the leaders of the movement were Emily Murphy and Nellie McClung who challenged the patriarchy of Canadian Edwardian society. The movement was really two differing views of the same goal. Equal Rights feminists wanted to eliminate laws that excluded women from taking a more prominent role in society. Social feminists wanted laws enacted preserving women’s unique, and perilous position in a changing society.

In 1917, Prime Minister Borden needed to bring in conscription in order to maintain the forces already in France. However, he needed to pass it through an increasingly hostile Parliament. His solution was simple; make it an election issue. To ensure success, he hedged that women with relatives in the service would support his move. As such he passed the necessary laws to allow these women the vote under the Elections Act. This was part of a larger trend because for the last few yeas women were being enfranchised at the provincial level – Manitoba, Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia 1917 – Ontario Nova Scotia Borden was right that the limited enfranchisement would help him pass the act. In 1917, the selected women were enfranchised at the federal level and they responded by supporting him and getting the Military Service Act of 1917 ratified.

As with anything, once it has been given, it is difficult to take back. Within the year, 1918, the federal government had to open the right to vote to all women, not just those with relatives overseas. Subsequently in 1920, women were finally allowed to hold public office and serve as members in government. Economically, at the end of the war women were pushed out of their jobs to allow servicemen to return. By the beginning of the 1920s, women could now exercise political freedom, they were still bound by economic convention. The struggle for the right to remain in the workforce was to resurface again after the Second World War.