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| Members of the Australian Women's Land Army tending opium poppies.. |
The 1919 Restoration of Pre-War Practices Bill took jobs away from working-class women while middle-class women benefited from the Sex Disqualification Removals Act (for the professions). Skilled women’s occupations like arc-welding were taken by men even when the technique was completely new.
The effect of war work was to demonstrate that women were capable of many tasks; it did not demonstrate that they should do them. One female occupation changed by war was domestic service. There were as many servants as before but service had changed; far fewer lived in or worked in large households. Overall, women contributed a substantial amount to the wartime economy especially in mechanised mass production factories making munitions.
Munitions workers got the most attention partly because there is so much more historical material for looking at their experience, partly because they received it at the time.
Manual work for women also evolved in peacetime as mass production in light industries, food and clothing expanded using the experience of war work. The war had shown women capable of great sacrifice in the name of a wider community than the household, a ‘higher form of motherhood in the factory’.
Women themselves talk proudly of their war contribution to this day. The war became like military service for men, a time out of a working life, distinct and different.
Originally published 17 Oct 2013 12:37 AM
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