Smith argued, the War did not cause the women’s suffrage movement to cease operations rather ‘it shifted, it modified, it metamorphosed’ its efforts. 8 Some groups of the movement became deeply patriotic, with The Suffragette , the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) leaflet becoming the Britannia . 9 They also organised a march to assert their right to serve in July 1915 attended by thousands of women. 10
However, that women had to demand greater involvement demonstrates how
unvalued they were as workers, which would make enfranchisement difficult without
the efforts of the suffrage movement having a lasting impact. The recruitment poster
for the Women’s A rmy Auxiliary Corp (WAAC) in 1917 does suggest some progress in the wider mobilisation, and thus value of women. 11 The sense of nationhood
caused by the War became entrenched within the contemporary views of society.
However, this nationalistic interpretation cannot be applied uniformly to women.
Contrastingly, some women, for example Sylvia Pankhurst, committed to pacifism and rejected the war effort, though this view has been overlooked. 12 Rather than
understand the effects of the War on women the traditional interpretation only
perceives mobilisation as being the same for any citizen due to fervent patriotism.
However, as women did not have the rights and status of an equal citizen this view
precludes their true experiences and how they did not rely on others but campaigned
for themselves. Thus, women’s mobilisation cannot be seen as a watershed moment
for women’s suffrage.
Whilst women’s mobilisation did not equate to a watershed moment for the
introduction of their suffrage, it did begin to grant some social changes which would
further deepen women’s socialisation and thus normative, rather than subjugated,
experiences as citizens. In this regard, the First World War was a watershed moment
for the growth of opportunities for working-class women, both in the home and in
employment as social class is the most prominent factor affecting women’s
8 Angela K. Smith, ‘Writing Suffrage Before 1914’, in Suffrage Discourse in Britain During the First World War (Florence, UK: Taylor & Francis Group, 2016), pp. 1 – 20 (p. 1). 9 Lucy Noakes, ‘Women’s Mobilization for War (Great Britain and Ireland)’, 1914-1918 Online International Encyclopedia of the First World War , 2014, para. 3 <https://encyclopedia.1914-1918- online.net/article/womens_mobilization_for_war_great_britain_and_ireland> [accessed 26 February 2023]. 10 ‘Great Procession of Women’, The Times , 17 July 1915, p. 3, The Times Digital Archive. 11 ‘Women Wanted Urgently’, Imperial War Museums <https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/31386> [accessed 9 April 2023]. 12 Angela Woollacott, On Her Their Lives Depend: Munitions Workers in the Great War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), p. 164.
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