Year 8 History Phase 6: The Home Front during World War II

Lesson 3: Women in WWII

L/O: To understand the role that women played on the Home Front during WWII and
evaluate their importance to the war effort

This worksheet is designed to be done as you watch the video with instructions,
which will help you complete the tasks.

Recap: Evacuation

Instructions: Answer these three questions. Remember to use complete sentences.

1. What was the main reason children were evacuated during WWII?

2. What was one challenge faced by evacuees?

3. What was one difficulty faced by the families and villages that took in
evacuees?
Challenge: Women in the military during WWII

During this lesson we will be concentrating on what women did on the Home Front
but it is important to remember that hundreds of thousands of women around the
world joined the military during WWII (including over 250,000 in the UK) as well as
secret organisations that fought the Nazis. For the challenge task you are going to
find out about one inspirational woman from WWII.

Choose one of the women pictured below:

Lyudmila Pavlichenko
Charity Adams Earley Nancy Wake

Wanda Gertz Hazel Ying Lee

Noor Inayat Khan

Use your historical research skills to answer these questions about her:

1. What did she do during WWII?

2. How did she help the Allies win victory?
3. Why is she important to remember?
Intro Task: Working Women during WWII

Instructions: Look at this British government poster from WWII and follow the tasks.
Remember to write in full sentences.

1. Describe what you can see in the poster:

2. Explain what emotions you think this poster was trying to provoke:

3. Evaluate why this poster was made:

Challenge Task

What do you think the three biggest challenges might have been for women starting
jobs outside of their home for the first time during WWII?
Remember to write in full sentences.
Main Task: The Role of Women on the Home Front during WWII

Instructions: Read or look at the sources and then answer the questions about them.

Remember to write in full sentences.

Source A: British government poster encouraging women to work part-time in

factories (1940)

Source B: British magazine article (1941)

‘We quite agree that there are millions of women in the country who could do useful
jobs in war. But the trouble is that so many insist on wanting to do jobs which they
are quite incapable of doing. The menace is the woman who thinks she ought to be
flying a high speed bomber when she really has not the intelligence to scrub the floor
of a hospital properly, or who wants to be an Air Raid Warden and yet can't cook her
husband's dinner.’

Source C: Interview with a woman who worked in a weapons factory in London

(1987)

‘We had to wait until the second alarm before we were allowed to go to the shelter.
The first bell was a warning they were coming. The second was when they were
overhead. They did not want any time wasted. The planes might have gone straight
past and the factory would have stopped for nothing.

Sometimes the Germans would drop their bombs before the second bell went. On
one occasion a bomb hit the factory before we were given permission to go to the
shelter. ... I saw several people flying through the air and I just ran home. I was
suffering from shock. I was suspended for six weeks without pay.

They would have been saved if they had been allowed to go after the first alarm. It
was a terrible job but we had no option. We all had to do war work. We were risking
our lives in the same way as the soldiers were.’

Source D: Extract from a book written by a woman about her experiences during
WWII (1992)

‘I went to work at a big engineering firm... My first impression of this great all male
place was not a good one, and the dust, grit and grime mingled with a strong smell of
oil, along with all the ... machinery ... scared me. Because of the shortage of men,
women were coming into the factories. There were women conductors on the buses
taking over until the men came home again, though, at the end of the war, they were
not so keen to let go of their new independence. The end of this war brought many
unheard and undreamt of changes.’

Source E: Women working in a weapons factory (1944)

Source F: Interview with a woman who joined the Women’s Land Army (an
organisation that encouraged women to work on farms) during WWII (2014)

‘Most people used to think that because we were in the country and working on
farms we were having a really good time. This was not so, although I am not saying
it was all bad... Some of the farmers thought we were there just to do all the dirty
jobs that no-one else would do… It took a long time for the farmers to realise we
were quite capable of doing a man's job when we had to.

Many of us think we were not treated fairly. For many years on Remembrance
Sunday, we have not been asked to be represented. The question is, why not? Do
we not deserve to be recognised with pride and honour? Why were we forgotten so
easily after we were no longer needed’

1. What is the message of the poster in Source A?

2. Read Source B. What does it tell us about attitudes towards women workers
during WWII?
3. Read Source C. What does it tell us about the risks and importance of
working in weapons factories?
4. Read Source D. Why do you think going to work in factories might have been
intimidating for some women?
5. Look at Source E. How do you think women doing these jobs might have
challenged traditional expectations of women?
6. Read Source F. Why does the author think she was not treated fairly, both
during WWII and after it?
7. Thinking about all of the sources, what do they tell us about how the
experience of working during WWII may have changed the attitudes of
women?

Now answer this question:

Explain how women contributed on the Home Front during WWII

You should write one paragraph. You should think about how women took jobs in
factories as well as doing things like work on farms and in transportation. Remember
to discuss how women going to work freed up men to fight.

Challenge Task

Imagine you are a government official. Write a letter to a factory owner explaining
why it is vital that he start employing women.
Plenary Task

Write down:

● THREE jobs women did during WWII, and why they were important

● TWO challenges working women faced during WWII

● ONE way going to work during WWII would have changed a woman’s outlook