WW1 Armistice Exhibition - Working Women

Women at Work

The involvement of women in the war effort did much to change perceptions of the role of women in British society.

During the war years women undertook jobs normally carried out by men and proved they could do the work just as well. Between 1914 and 1918, an estimated two million women replaced men in employment.

It had been proved that women were capable of jobs beyond those in traditionally 'female' roles, such as domestic service.

They were involved in every sort of occupation, clerking, shopkeeping, railway work, automobile driving, agricultural work, police work. However, employers still deemed that women’s work was worth less than men’s and their wage packets did not match men’s even for the same jobs.