Single Working Women's Day 2024 is on Sunday, August 4, 2024: How old would you have had to be to join the Women's Land Army in the Second World War?

Sunday, August 4, 2024 is Single Working Women's Day 2024. The SWWAN blog Happy Single Working Women's

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Single women from age 18+ - what most people today may not know is that women were 'conscripted' to work on the land and in the factories - this was seen as being part of the war effort which meant that the entire nation was at war with the enemy and not just the men.

I was born in 1941 and my mother was conscripted to factory work from the day I reached two years old at which point I was given a nursery place along with an army of screaming brats.

This link is about the Women's Land Army - and at the bottom of the page there are links to other areas where women worked during WW-Two

The Women's Land Army goes right back to WW-One in fact.

The biggest mistake Hitler ever made was under estimating the capabilities of German women, who, from his point of view were there to have babies and cook the food and stay at home and wait for their menfolk.

Blimey! Just try that today.

Should universal, quality child-care be considered a right to ensure women's equality?

What an interesting question.

I have many thoughts and feelings about this subject, being a mother, grandmother, and a former day-care worker--as well as a teacher, a single mother for a number of years, and raised by parents who both worked (back in the days before it was "usual" for white women to have to work!)

Children in this country seem to be our lowest priority (followed by the elderly who are poor). When children are murdered, it is usually called manslaughter, and the penalties are not nearly what they would be if it had been an adult who was murdered.

Our educational system is lousy.

Women who receive government aid (welfare) are forced to go to work before their children are of school age, so the children have to be placed in some sort of day care situation (Which, in turn, is also paid for by the govt.--Why not just let the woman stay home with her child until it is six years old?? Wouldn't be any costlier.) The day care providers are usually minimum wage earners, and, of course, do not have nearly the stake in the outcome of the child that his/her own parent(s) would have.

Wages are so low and economy so bad right now, that even in two-parent families it is often a necessity for the mother to work! Once again, we have child care problems.

I don't know if it should be a "right" of women (or single men, whom I'm sure you meant to include), in order to ensure equality, but it certainly is the right of every child to be well cared for!!!

Many of the naswer-ers here today seem to have missed your point altogether. One thought you meant health care for children, and said that if the mother works her job should provide it. (Well, ha ha, most jobs don't even provide it for the employee any longer!!) Universal socialized health care should be a given in a "civilized" industrialized country with the riches that we have!! All children have a "right" to that!

Another answer-er said that she didn't want welfare, but supported "subsidies" from the government! (Well, what does she think "welfare" is???)

In England, mothers automatically receive a monthly check for each child whether the mother is married or not. This is to ensure that the child's needs are taken care of. (Daddy might drink or gamble or....whatever. And I know that one from first-hand experience.)

To quote that song that I can't stand to hear even one more time, "Our children are our future!" They need quality care on all levels, whether mother is a career woman, a woman who has to work to support the family, or a stay-at-home mom1 [and, believe me, that is a "job" and a "career", too])

Thanks for giving me a chance to rant on one of my favorite subjects--children!

How did women's roles change from WW1 to WW2?

During WW!, a lot of women took over jobs that had been vacated by men, workig in heavy industry, in munitions, in farming and forestry and on the railway sand the buses etc. Professsional women found new opportunitites in managerial positions etc. The competence of women in filling these jobs impressed the goverment of the USA, the UK, Germany etc, and influeced their decision to give women the vote after the war.

The 1920s was an era when there was generally a decline in interest in careers, education, social issues etc among women. The 'New Women' of the pre-WW1 era, who had been keen on education, careers and social reform, seemed stuffy and old-fashioned to the fun-loving flappers of the 1920s, who were more interested in having a good time, drinking and smoking and dancing and going out with men without chaperones etc. The idea of staying single to purssue a career seemed very unappealing to most young women of the 1920s.

A great many women had to work for a living of course, but most expected to give up work when they married, unless they were very poor and had to go on working from economic necessity. However, the number of married women who worked increased during the Depression, as more women went out to work to keep their families going.

The role of most women however would not have changed particularly during this period. Most women who worked were in jobs commonly done by women. For instance, my mother and her sister worked as telephonists, my mother's best friend was a shop assistant (sales clerk) in a large London department store. She had another friend who was a nurse, another who was a secretary, ad a cousin who was a schoolteacher. These were all jobs commonly done by women in the 1930s. During WW2, my mother joined the Wrens (women's royal navy), but in 1944 she got married and left the wrens, there was no question of her staying on once she was married ('juggling' was not encouraged in those days).