Women and the Second World War Facts & Worksheets

• • Founded in 1938, the ATS originally included jobs such as clerks, orderlies, cooks, store women or drivers. It then expanded to include over a hundred different roles, which helped free up more men for front-line service. The ATS was the largest of the women’s services, with over 250,000 women serving in the Second World War.
  • Formed in 1939, the WAAF sought to release RAF personnel for front-line duties. Its members grew to 182,000 by 1943. It had a variety of roles which consisted of compiling weather reports, maintaining aircraft, serving on airfields and assisting in intelligence.
  • The WRNS was reorganised in 1939 and aimed to free up men for service at sea. Around 74,000 women joined this service and took over jobs on the shore, which initially included clerical and domestic duties. They played a vital role in the planning and organisation of naval operations. They were later asked to take on coding and cypher work from 1941, serving at Bletchley Park and its outstations.

Women were employed in war-centred industries.

• • Women worked in factories to produce essential war material, such as aircraft, vehicles and munitions. The proportion of women working in these fields rose from 17.8 percent in 1939 to 38.2 percent in 1938.
  • Whilst women who worked in factories were often well-paid, they were still given considerably lower wages than men. They fought for equal pay by agitating on a local level, often without the support of their unions. They were able to achieve this in a few industries during the war years.
  • Their work also involved long hours, which proved difficult as they also needed to attend to domestic chores and caregiving. Consequently, many women were unable to hold their jobs.
  • To assist female workers with childcare, thousands of state-funded nurseries opened across the country during the Second World War.

Women also joined other wartime services and voluntary welfare work.

• • Women could join the Auxiliary Fire Service, which was tasked to supplement existing local fire services. They were mainly given administrative roles.
  • In the Home Guard Auxiliaries, women assisted in secretarial work, telephone duties, and cooking.
  • The Women’s Land Army was given the task of increasing food production. Women worked in all weathers and conditions and could be assigned to work anywhere in the country.
  • The Women’s Voluntary Service was formed and had one million members by 1943. Their tasks involved knitting balaclavas and socks for servicemen, providing refreshments for those who sheltered in the Underground, and helping people who had lost their homes in the German bombings.
  • Women also performed nursing roles at hospitals, including military ones
• The government encouraged the participation of women in the war effort and in a series of propaganda campaigns; the key message was, ‘There’s Not Much Women Can’t Do’. During the Second World War, there were over 640,000 women in the armed forces and over 6 million in civilian war work.

Women after the war years

• Women’s contributions during the Second World War were vital. Women proved their capability to undertake the jobs previously thought to be unfit for them. When the conflict ended, women were demobilised from the “men’s jobs” in order to make way for the returning servicemen. As the post-war reconstruction initiatives required an expanded labour force, the government started campaigns in the late 1940s to urge women to enter or stay in the labour market.
• Married women were demobilised sooner at the end of the war, so they could prepare their home for their returning spouses.
• Women turned to civilian jobs after the war. In fact, numerous job opportunities which were categorised as ‘women’s work’ became available in the succeeding years.
• Jobs remained strictly segregated by gender, and women were still paid lower wages than men. Hence, the campaign for equal pay continued.
• In 1948, the Army and Air Force (Women’s Service) Act was passed, creating the opportunity for a permanent peacetime role for women in the armed services.
• The involvement of women in the war effort gave way to the reorganisation of the Women’s Royal Air Force as a permanent force in 1949. About 80% of jobs became accessible to women. However, women were still restricted from engaging in combat duty.
• Meanwhile, the Women’s Voluntary Services, which was later renamed to Royal Voluntary Service, persists as a standing reserve force today.
• In 1997, the idea for a national monument to memorialise women’s contributions during the Second World War was initially proposed. In 2005, the Monument to the Women of World War II situated on Whitehall in London next to the Cenotaph at the end of Downing Street was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II. This was in commemoration of the millions of women who contributed to the war effort by undertaking a multitude of crucial jobs.