Women and War Work by Helen Fraser
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Helen Fraser >> Women and War Work
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[Illustration: POLICE WOMEN]
"We believe this constitutes the first time in history that women
guards have been entrusted with the care and custody of their
fellow-women when charged with breaking the law."
Other pieces of important and difficult work have been undertaken by
women.
There have been, unfortunately, cases in which the soldier's wife,
left at home, has behaved badly and been unfaithful. Men often write
from the trenches to the Chief Constable to ask if charges made
to them in letters about their wives are true. Naturally the Chief
Constable asks the women to investigate these charges. Sometimes the
charges are quite unfounded, simply spiteful and malicious and the
woman and Chief Constable write and say so.
In other cases the husband knows of unfaithfulness and writes to the
Army Pay Office asking to have the allowance stopped to his wife.
The Army Pay Office never acts on any such letter without securing a
report from the Chief Constable, and again the woman is needed,
and there is frequently the question of the children as well. Their
allowance, of course, never ceases but they may go to some relative or
be disposed of in some way.
These cases are infinitesimal in number.
After the outbreak of the war there were many scares. Every one in our
country knows now how a myth is established. We have left the stage
behind where people told you they knew, from a friend, who knew a
friend who knew some one else who saw it, who was in the War Office,
etc., etc., etc.--that England was invaded--that the Navy was all
down--or the German Navy was all down--that we were going to do this,
that, or the other impossible thing.
Dame Rumour had a joyous time in the early days of the war and
we suffered from the people who were not only quite certain that
everything was wrong morally, but told us that the illegitimate birth
rate was going to be enormous. Their accusations against our ordinary
girls were monstrous. There was some excitement and foolishness, but
anybody who was really working and dealing with it as the Patrol were,
knew the accusations were ridiculous. The illegitimate birth rate of
our country is lower than before, which is the best reply to, and
the vindication of the men of our armies and our girls against, these
absurd attacks.
Another scare was about the drinking of women. Soldiers' wives were
attacked in this connection and the same kind of wild accusation
made, so much so that a committee was appointed to go into the whole
question (1915), presided over by Mrs. Creighton, President of the
National Union of Women Workers.
In my experience a great deal of this talk was caused by the fact that
many women, who had never done social work, and who knew nothing of
real conditions, started to go among the people and were shocked and
overwhelmed by what were unfortunately normal wrong conditions, and
lost all sense of perspective. Some women did drink--true--but I found
they were generally the women who always had done it, and who perhaps
in some cases, having more money of their own and no husbands to deal
with, drank a little more.
The findings of the Committee showed this clearly and they made some
recommendations, especially recommending that the Central Board for
the Control of the Liquor Traffic proceeded to do on its creation,
restriction of hours of sale. Our restrictions make the sale of liquor
legal only from 12 noon to 2.30 and from 6.30 to 8.30 or 9 P.M. Our
convictions for drunkenness for women have fallen very low and for
men, too. There is very much less drinking in our country and things
are very much improved.
These attacks on soldiers' wives were naturally much resented as their
work in the homes and industries, with their men away, and all their
difficulties, has not always been easy. We find there is a little more
difficulty with the boys. They miss the fathers' discipline and there
has been some trouble through that, but such magnificent agencies as
the Boy Scouts, who have helped us everywhere in the war, do great
good.
The problem of dealing with the prevention of immorality has been
a big one. The Women Patrols and the Women Police have been used in
London in Waterloo Road (which had a bad reputation) and in parks,
etc. The G.R. Volunteer Corps of men who meet the soldier arriving in
London at the stations do a very good work.
In the Army and Navy excellent leaflets and booklets were issued
dealing with the question in a very straightforward and admirable way.
The Council for Moral and Social Hygiene and the National Council for
Combating Venereal Diseases has been doing a great work. The latter,
which is a body set up as a result of the Government Commission on
Venereal Diseases, had done a great deal of educational work and has
set up an organization over the country. The Commission recommended
much fuller facilities for free treatment for those suffering from
these diseases in every town and district.
A Criminal Law Amendment Bill has been brought in and it improves
our existing law in many ways and strengthens it. There has been much
controversy about certain of its provisions, some dealing with power
to send young girls to homes. There is a very strong feeling among
many of our social workers that Rescue Work in our country altogether
needs overhauling and change, and new experiments are being tried.
Wars have almost invariably in the past meant an enormous increase in
venereal diseases on the return of the army in the civil population.
Armies lose large numbers of men by them, and every person must feel
it is their plain duty to leave no means untried and no measures
unused that could help.
The woman who lives by her immoral earnings is, like the man who is
immoral and uncontrolled, a serious danger and menace to her country
and to generations yet unborn.
The problems that arise from the existence of these two groups are
the business of all men and women. The problems are those of providing
decent and wholesome recreation and surroundings, of helping men and
women to meet under right conditions, of giving the right kind of
information and guidance to the soldier and the girl, of realizing
what drink does in this traffic, and the fundamental task of working
to create better social, economic and moral conditions.
There is no need nor is it desirable to have masses of people
suffer unnecessary misery by a knowledge of the exact nature of this
disease--which leads sometimes to morbidity and often to a frenzied
desire to do something at once, before they really know anything about
the question and what has been done.
There are three questions that ought to be answered in the affirmative
before any legislation or preventive treatment is decided on.
Will the proposed action apply equally to men and to women, to rich
and to poor?
Will it tend to increase and not undermine the powers of self-control?
Will it improve morals in the nation and elevate them?
Repressive measures by themselves achieve nothing. Preventive measures
of every practical and sound kind we want, but most of all we need
to inculcate the truth that "Self-reverence, self-knowledge,
self-control, These three alone lead man to sovereign power."
It is not enough to prevent and teach. We should be willing to help
up, to save, to love, and we should never be self-righteous in our
help.
Who among us has the right to cast the first stone?
WHAT THE WAR HAS DONE FOR WOMEN
"Give her of the fruits of her lands and let her own words
praise her in the gates."
--PROV., Chap 31.
CHAPTER XIII
WHAT THE WAR HAS DONE FOR WOMEN
The war has done already, with us, such great things for women, so
many of them so naturally accepted now, that it is almost difficult to
get back in thought, and realize where we stood when it broke out.
General Smuts, in one of his speeches, said, "Under stress of great
difficulty practically everything breaks down ultimately, and the only
things that survive are really the simple human feelings of loyalty
and comradeship to your fellows, and patriotism, which can stand any
strain and bear you through all difficulty and privation. We soldiers
know the extraordinary value of these simple feelings, how far they go
and what strain they can bear, and how, ultimately, they support the
whole weight of civilization."
In this war our men, in their dealings with us, have got down more and
more to simple fundamental truths and facts--loyalty and comradeship,
founded on our common patriotism. We have got nearer and nearer to the
ideal so many of us long for, equal right to serve and help. The great
fundamental establishment of political rights for women has come with
us. When war broke out, women's suffrage was winning all the time a
greater and greater mass of adherents, a majority of the House was
pledged to vote for it and had been for years, the Trade Unions and
Labour Party stood solid for it, but the motive to act seemed lacking.
War came, and every political party in our country laid aside
political agitation. No party meetings have been held since August,
1914. Suffragists and anti-suffragists did the same. The great body of
constitutional suffragists kept their organization intact but used
it for "sustaining the vital energies of the nation." Relief Work,
Hospital Work and Supplies, Child Welfare, Comforts, Workrooms, help
for professional women, work for Belgian refugees, work in canteens
and huts, work for the Soldiers and Sailors Families' Association,
Schools for Mothers, Girls' Clubs--into everything the Suffrage
societies fling themselves with ardour, zeal and ability. No women
knew better how to organize, no women better how to educate and win
help. They formed an admirable Women's Interests Committee, and looked
after all women's interests excellently.
When the Government issued its first appeal for women volunteers for
munitions and land, etc., it asked the Suffrage societies to circulate
them and to help them to secure the needed labour from women.
As the war went on it became clearer and clearer that the men of
the country saw more and more vividly why suffragists had asked for
votes--and more and more were impressed with the value of their work.
At meetings to do propaganda for Government appeals, when women spoke
on the needs of the country, men everywhere, although it had nothing
to do with the appeal, and had never been mentioned, declared their
conversion to Women's Suffrage in the War.
Women pointed out that they did not want Women's Suffrage as a
reward--but as a simple right. They had not worked for a reward, but
for their country, as any citizen would, but, in our country, the
great converting power is practical proof of value and they had that
overwhelmingly in our work. The Press came out practically solidly for
Women's Suffrage. The work of women was praised in every paper and
one declared, "It cannot be tolerable that we should return to the
old struggle about admitting them to the franchise." Eminent
Anti-Suffragists, inside and outside of the House of Commons, frankly
admitted their conversion. Mr. Asquith, the old enemy of Women's
Suffrage, said in a memorable speech: "They presented to me not only
a reasonable, but, I think, from their point of view, an unanswerable
case.... They say that when the war comes to an end, and when the
process of industrial reconstruction has to be set on foot, have not
the women a special claim to be heard on the many questions which will
arise directly affecting their interests, and possibly meaning for
them large displacement of labour? I cannot think that the House will
deny that, and, I say quite frankly, that I cannot deny that claim."
It was clear the whole question of franchise would need to be gone
into--the soldiers' vote was lost to him under our system when he was
away, and the sailors' redistribution was long overdue, an election,
as things were, would be absolutely unrepresentative. So after several
attempts to deal with the problem in sections, a Committee was set
up under the Speaker of the House of Commons to go into the whole
question of Franchise reform and registration.
The Committee was composed of five Peers and twenty-seven members of
the House of Commons, and started its work in October, 1916, and in
its report, April, 1917, it recommended, by a majority, that a measure
of enfranchisement should be given to women.
The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies and the Consultative
Committee, which had been formed in 1916 by the N.U.W.S.S., of
representatives of all constitutional societies, presented various
memorials, notably an admirable memorandum of women's work and opinion
in favour, prepared by the National Union for the Speakers' Conference
during its sittings. After its recommendations while the bill was
being drafted, Mrs. Henry Fawcett, LL.D., the President of the
N.U.W.S.S., headed a deputation received by the Premier, Mr. Lloyd
George, who has always been a supporter of Women's Suffrage. This was
certainly one of the most representative and interesting deputations
that ever went to Downing Street. It numbered over fifty and every
woman in it represented a great section of industrial and war
workers--Miss Mary MacArthur, the Trade Union Leader was there, and
Miss Margaret Bondfield, Mrs. Flora Annie Steele, the authoress; Lady
Forbes Robertson, for actresses; Miss Adelaide Anderson, our
Chief Women Factory Inspector; Mrs. Oliver Strachey, Parliamentary
Honourable Secretary of the National Union, whose work has been
tireless and invaluable in the House; a woman munition worker, a woman
conductor, a railway woman worker, a woman chemist, a woman from a
bank, a clerk, a shipyard worker, a nurse, a V.A.D., an eminent
woman Doctor, a peeress in Lady Cowdray, who has done so much for the
British Women's Hospitals and so many other war objects, and women
representatives of every calling in the nation at peace and war. Mrs.
Pankhurst, who has been very active in war work, was also present on
the Premier's invitation, and Mrs. Fawcett brought a Welshwoman who
made her plea in her own language, the Premier's own, too, and the one
he loves to hear. In his reply, he assured them the bill would contain
a measure of enfranchisement for women as drafted, and he was quite
sure the House would carry it.
The recommendations of the Speakers' Conference were an agreed
compromise, and the Representation of the People Bill, as it was
called on its introduction, has gone through very much on the lines
of the recommendations. It arranges for postal or proxy votes for
the soldier, the sailor and the merchant seaman, it simplifies the
qualifications for men, it retains the University vote for men and
extends it to women, and it enfranchises women of thirty years of age
on a residence qualification, and all wives of voters of the same age.
It disfranchises, for the time, the conscientious objector who will do
no national service. The age at which our men vote is twenty-one. The
higher age of the women was a compromise, which was accepted by all
women's societies and by labour women, though it was not the terms
they stood for--equality.
If we had it on the same terms as men, we should very greatly
outnumber the men. There were over a million more women than men
before the war and a new electorate greater than all the men's numbers
brought in at once was not considered wise. To press for it would have
wrecked our chances.
This measure enfranchises six million women, and about ten million men
are now voters, so we have a very fair proportion.
The women's clause was carried, with only thirty-five dissentients and
later only seventeen voted against it.
In this same bill, with practically no discussion, an amendment was
carried enfranchising the wives of local government electors.
It is difficult to adequately express the confidence, the desire, and
the willingness to co-operate, that there is now between our men and
women.
We know, too, that the great woman's movement of our country, which
has worked to this end for fifty years and numbered our greatest women
among its adherents, has had much to do with the ability of our women
to take the great part they have in this crisis. If women had not
toiled and opened education and opportunities to women, and preached
the necessity of full service, we could not have done it.
One great thing the war has done for our women is to draw us all
closely together--in common sorrows, hopes and fears, we find how much
we are one and in so much of our work women of every rank of life
are together. We had that union before in many ways, but never so
completely as now. _Punch_ has a delightful picture that summed up
how we are mixed in soldier's canteens, and huts and buffets, and
Hospitals, which show a little Londoner saying to a meek member of the
aristocracy "washing up," "Nar, then, Lady Halexandra, 'urry up with
them plaites," and we have an amusing little play of the same kind.
The society girl who washes down the Hospital steps, and washes up for
hours, and carries meals up and down stairs in her work, week after
week, and month after month, and year after year, in our Hospitals,
knows what work is now, and the soldier who is served, and the
soldier's sister and wife, learns something, too, about her that is
worth learning.
We have also learned a great deal in our welfare work, and the welfare
supervisors and the workers both have benefited, and the heads of
the innumerable hostels, which we have built everywhere for our
girls--dozens in our new Government-built munition cities, have been
of very real help and service to the girls. A tactful, sensible,
educated woman has a great deal to give that helps the younger girl,
and can look after and advise her as to health, work, leisure and
amusements in a way that leaves real lasting benefit.
In the munition works, well educated women, women with plenty of
money, women who never worked before, work year after year beside the
working girl. Just at first some of the working girls were not quite
sure of her, but it is all right long, long ago, and they mutually
admire each other. The well-off woman works her hours and takes her
pay, and takes it very proudly. I have been told many times by these
women who, for the first time know the joy of earning money, "I never
felt so proud in my life as when I got my first week's money." And the
men in the factories learn a lot, too. "Women have been too much kept
back," was the comment of a foreman in a shell factory to the Chief
Woman Factory Inspector on a visit she was paying to it. The skilled
men, teaching the women, have learned a great deal about them, too,
and have helped the women in so many ways. Men have been amazed at the
ability and power and capacity for work of the women and are, on the
whole, very willing to say so and express their admiration.
One munition girl writes: "The timekeeper, quite a gorgeous gentleman
in uniform, gave us quite a welcome.... The charge-hand of the
Welder's shop helped us to start, and stayed with us most of Friday.
He was most kind, and showed us the best way to tackle each job, did
one for us, and then watched us doing it."
Another says, "Our foreman is a dear old man, so kind and full of fun.
The men welders are awfully good to us."
In considering the practical facts of new opportunities for women, one
thing is clear. Masses of our women took their new work as "temporary
war workers," but as the war has gone on, it has become clearer and
clearer that, in many cases, these tasks are going to be permanently
open to women. One reason is that many of the men will never return to
take up their work again--another, that many of them will never return
to what they did before.
They have been living in the open-air, doing such different things,
such big vistas have opened out that they will never be content to
go back to some of their tasks. There is the other fact that we,
like every other country, will need to repair and renovate so much,
will need to create new and more industries, will need to add to our
productiveness to pay off our burdens of debt, and to carry out our
schemes of reconstruction, so women will still be needed. Our women,
in still greater numbers, will not be able to marry, and the best
thing for any nation and any set of women is to do work, and there
will be plenty of room for all the work our women can do. Many will go
back to home work, of course; there are large numbers who are working
in our country, only while their husbands are away, and when they
return will find their work in their homes again.
We are offering special training opportunities to the young widow of
the soldier or officer.
In special branches of work our opportunities are very much greater
and better. Medicine is one of the professions in which women have
very specially made good. Better training opportunities have opened,
more funds have been raised to enable women of small means to get
medical education, and the Queen herself gave a portion of a gift of
money she received, for this purpose. Most medical appointments are
open to them now and they have been urged by the great medical bodies
to enter for training in still greater numbers in the different
Universities, and have done so.
More research is being done by them in every department. In
professions such as accountancy, architecture, analytical chemistry,
more and more women are entering. In the banking world women have done
very satisfactory work, and one London bank manager, asked to say what
he thought of prospects after the war, says he is very strongly of
opinion it will continue to be a profession for women after the war.
This manager thinks the question of higher administrative posts being
open to women will depend entirely on themselves and their work, and
what they prove capable of achieving and holding, they will certainly
have.
In the war, one profession, in particular, has come nearer to finding
its rightful place than ever before--the teaching profession. Their
salaries which, in too many cases, were disgracefully low, have been
raised. The woman teacher has shown her capacity in new fields of
work in the boys' schools, but it is in another sense that their
profession, both men and women, but very specially the women, have
achieved a very real gain in the war.
The teachers of the country have done a very great deal of war work
of every kind. The National Register of 1915 was largely done by their
labour. The War Savings Associations and Committees owe a great debt
to teachers and inspectors, who are the backbone of the movement,
headmistresses are asked constantly to help in securing trained women,
taught to work in Hospitals on their holidays, on land, in organizing
supplies and comforts in canteens and clubs, and more and more are put
on official Committees in their towns and districts.
It means the teacher is finding the status and position the teachers
in their profession ought to have in their communities, and the war
has done a great deal towards achieving that desirable end, though
there is still a good deal to be done.
In the Government Service there has undoubtedly been great
opportunities for women, especially those of organizing, executive and
secretarial ability--and in many cases the payment in higher posts
is identical for men and women, and higher posts, if they have the
ability, are freely given to women and the whole position of women
in our Civil Service is improved. In the very highest posts, such as
those of Insurance and Feeble-minded Commissioners, etc., women before
the war received the same salaries as men.
The organizing ability and the common sense way in which our women
in voluntary organization, quite rapidly, themselves decided what
organizations were unnecessary and merely duplicating others, and
refused to help them, so that they died out quite quickly, roused
admiration, and the war has educated vast numbers of women in
organization and executive ability. Women who never in their lives
organized anything, and never kept an account properly, are doing
all kinds of useful work. One nice middle-aged lady whose War Savings
Association accounts were being kept wrongly, or rather were not
really being kept at all, when told they must be done fully and
correctly by one of our National Committee representatives, said, "Oh,
but you see, I never did anything but crochet before the war"; but we
have succeeded in making even the crochet ladies keep accounts and do
wonderful things.
In the great world of mechanics and engineering, women are doing
a wonderful amount of work and, there is no doubt, will remain in
certain departments after the war. One danger there is in the women's
attitude--so many of our women have learned one branch of work very
quickly, that there probably will be a tendency to believe that
anything can be learned as easily. There are only certain departments
of mechanics that can be learned in a few months' time, and women will
probably go on doing these. Such work as theirs in optical munitions,
has shown their very special aptitude for it and in law-making,
etc., they will be used more and more. Women have successfully done
tool-setting and can go on with that. The training for civil and
mechanical engineering is long, but there will be, if women are
keen and will train, plenty of opportunity for them in peace-time
occupations in civil, mechanical or electrical branches in connection
with municipal, sanitary and household questions and in laundries,
farms, etc. The women architects and these women could very well
co-operate closely.
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