What did the Womens Suffrage Movement have to do with the World Wars?
During World War One, a lot of women took on jobs that had previously been done by men. Many women of course were already working before World War One, there have always been women who had to work for a living, but during the war they took on jobs that previously been thought of as unsuitable for women. They worked on the railways and the buses and in forestry and farming and were chauffeurs and van and taxi drivers, and in the UK they joined the newly created women’s police force. And large numbers served overseas as nurses, ambulance drivers, etc. All this helped to persuade the government of the day that women were competent and deserving of the franchise. And so in the UK, women over 30 got the vote in 1918, German women also got the vote in 1918,and in the USA women got the vote in 1920. I don’t think women’s suffrage had a great deal to do with WW2, because by then most countries already had votes for women. French women did not get the vote until 1947, but I do not know whether
