The Changing Role and Status of Women since 1945

The Changing Role and Status of Women since 1945

1. Source A is an account of events towards the end of the Second

World War written by a woman welder and it gives us a good idea of

what happened to some women when the end of the war was drawing near

and men started coming home. The source tells us that 12 women welders

were made "redundant" with "no reason given" and although the source

is only one woman's experience, a lot of women were made redundant as

soon as the war started coming to an end because men were promised

their jobs back and women were, therefore, expected to go back home

and revert to being housewives and mothers again.

Although the government produced a great deal of propaganda

encouraging women to take men's jobs and depicted women as strong

workers and an important part of the community, as soon as the war was

coming to an end and their effort wasn't needed anymore, women

suddenly turned from valuable to dispensable workers as personnel

officers, as in source A, simply fired the 12 women workers with no

explanation or reason. We can assume the source is reliable because

it's an account written by a woman who actually went through the war,

working hard and then was suddenly made redundant and we can assume

the account was written at the time, making it a valuable piece of

evidence.

There are, however, limitations to the source because although there

is evidence to show that women were made redundant as easily as in

source A, the account is effectively, one woman's experience only and

so as much as we can learn how some women welders were treated in

source A, we don't learn a lot about how women workers were...

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...n. There are no sources

showing a piece of positive feminist writing or any newspaper

clippings of how much uproar feminists were causing with their unique

demonstrations. Women have moved on from being second class citizens.

I think it's not appropriate to call women in Britain that anymore

since they have fair opportunities in life compared to men and

compared to other countries, equality has been reached beyond belief

on all aspects, including fashion for example: women today can wear

what they like in this country but it's very different in countries

such as Iran or Iraq. In terms of changes to the law, feminists did

very little since only governments can change the law but feminism

definitely resulted in a change of attitudes as women are now given

opportunities in all fields and slowly, equality is being reached.