WOMEN AND WAR

1. Women had different roles in each war, in the first world war they still mainly worked in volunteer positions, a few women worked outside the home in paid income but that was mainly in the clothing/textile industries. WWI 1914-1918. In WWII 1939-1945 women were encouraged to work in factories, and to basically take over the jobs that men had left to go to war. They also ran the Womens Land Army which was a huge organisation which used to run the farms.
2. WWII is when things really started to change for women, there was a major advertising campaign to get women into the Services, Nursing, Womens Land Army. Also into the factories they were finally allowd into the typically male dominated positions, although of course for a lot less pay.
3. In World War I women were expected to stay home and look after the children while the men went off to fight in the war. They were of course expected to help with volunteer positions like Red Cross etc.. Some women did seek paid employment but most stayed home and took over all the household duties. Those who did enter the paid workforce were not encouraged to continue after the war ended.
4. The Australian Comforts Fund made socks and sent them over to the men in the trenches, as they had no way of drying their socks.
5. In WW1 women were expected to fill their traditional roles with a few extras added on. But in WW2 things really changed for women, they were asked to fill traditionally male roles and work outside the home and not just in volunteer positions like in WW1.
6. I will send this to you in a word doc!!!!!!!!
7. The Womens land army was a voluntary group who moved into the rural communities and did the work on the farms so that the men could either go to war or work in the jobs they were needed in. You had to be between the ages of 18 and 50 and be a british subject to be able to join.
8. Vivian Bullwinkle was a South Australian nurse who enrolled in the war when she was 25. While trying to escape the area her ship was sunk and 22 nurses floated to shore, where they were massacred in the sea. She was the sole survivor and made it back to land where she cared for an injured solider for 12 days before he died. She then gave herself up to the japanese making no mention of the massacre she had been involved with. She was held captive for three years until the end of the war.
9. These men were a group of pilots that Bowen sketched in front of their bomber plane, before she could finish the group portrait the men were Missing in action, presumed dead and she had to finish from photographs and sketches. One of the men did eventually turn up at the end of the war after being held POW by the Germans.