Women's Contribution to the War and Their Right to Vote

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Women's Contribution to the War and Their Right to Vote

I agree partially that women's contribution to the war helped them

gain the vote for over 30s in 1918. But I don't agree that it was the

only reason that they got the vote, there were many different

arguments as to why they gained the franchise in 1918 but there are

three main ones and these are the arguments I will be discussing. I

believe that all three of these arguments aid in the progression of

granting women's Suffrage, but not one is responsible entirely.

When the First World War was declared, women decided to abandon their

Suffrage campaigning and join together with men to defend their

country. This can be analysed in two different ways. Either they

wanted to help defend their country from the Central Powers purely

through their strong nationalism, or they saw the opportunity to show

the government that they were able to handle the country while most

men were away fighting.

Women were still just as passionate about gaining the right to vote

during the First World War, but now they had seen a new way to go

about this campaign. In 1914, there were still jobs regarded as men's

jobs and those regarded as women's jobs. With many men away on

military duty, women had to step in and take over. A poster produced

by the government in 1916 (source F) shows that the government was

also keen for women to step into the men's jobs. Working as a

munitions worker would have definitely have been considered a man's

job but now the government needed the women to help. Many occupations

acted similarly to this for women between 1914 and 1918. For example

in 1914 only 2,000 women worked in government offices, by 1918 this

had risen to 225,000 (source G). There was also a women's army corps

set up.

There are many contradicting reasons to the giving of suffrage to some

women after the war. Some people believe it was due to the efforts and

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