The Role of Women in World War I

The new role of women during the interwar period following the First World War permanently disrupted the social structure of the traditional family. This role would challenge all traditional views of women as being helpless and unable to do the work of their male counterparts, giving rise to the self-sufficient and liberated young woman with her own place in the work force making her own money. These changing times created a reality that many were not able to deal with . However, many of these same people that were dismayed with a woman leaving "her place" and moving out into reality easily forget the support efforts women exercised with extreme efficiency in World War I. These efforts would be critical to an allied victory in World War I as well as the social well being of future generations of women. Right up to the outbreak of World War I, feminists on both sides pledged themselves to peace, in international women's solidarity. Within months of the war's outbreak, however, "all the major feminist groups of the belligerents had given a new pledge - to support their respective governments." Campaigners for women's suffrage quickly became avid patriots and organizers of women in support of the war effort. Many of these feminists hoped that nationalistic support of the conflict would improve the prospects for women's suffrage after the war, and this came true in a number of countries. To many women, their service in the First World War would be the justification they needed in order to move out of the patriarchal family shadows and begin a new era that would give rise to the new woman and signal the end of matriarchal censorship.