What effect did the great war have on the relations between men and women?

Answer 1

If by the great war you mean WWI there was a big change in the way men and women related to one another. The men who were called up to go to war in greater and greater numbers left behind jobs in all industries that still needed to be done. Munitions factories had to be fully staffed and the heavy industries like ship building and engineering had to have enough workers to meet the extra demand the was was placing on them. As men weren't around to do the jobs they were done by women.

Once a group is shown that they can do something you can never take that knowledge away from them. Women could see that they could do anything men had done previously. Using modern machines and tools women could overcome all of the physical differences that had been given as barriers to them carrying out particular jobs - and some jobs didn't need any special machinery to perform. They had been barred to women out of prejudice and tradition.

Women could see for themselves that they could do what men could do and so the old roles could never be fully put back when the war was over. Child care was organised when it was required to allow women to work. It was promoted as a good thing to allow women to do their bit for the war effort whereas in peace time the women were given the impression that letting someone else look after you child was a bad thing (unless you were very rich in which case it was almost compulsory).

After the war very many men had been killed and so there were many more unmarried women around. This led to more women going in for careers where being married was generally frowned upon - teaching and office work for example.