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Unlock This CourseBy 1928 women over 21 had the same vote as men. Yet in the 1930s, women's lives at work and at home were still shaped by a common belief: a woman's main job was to marry, have children and look after the home. This belief affected the jobs women could do, what they were paid and the help they received when work ran out.
Key terms:
The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act of 1919 opened professions to women, but it did not stop employers from forcing women out when they married. The civil service, many councils (for women teachers), banks and other big employers kept a marriage bar. A woman who married lost her job, however good she was at it. The bar was still in place when the 1930s began, and it lasted well beyond them.
Most women worked in lower-paid jobs such as domestic service, shops, clothing and food factories. Their pay was usually well below men's, even for similar work. In the 1930s some of the new light industries in the South and Midlands gave women more jobs.
Women's unemployment benefit was paid at a lower rate than men's. In 1931 the government also brought in rules, known as the Anomalies Regulations (aimed at cases the government called anomalies, such as married women claiming benefit), that made it much harder for married women to claim. Many lost their right to benefit.
The government argued that a married woman had a husband to support her. Critics said this ignored women who paid into the insurance scheme like men, or who were the family's only earner.
Change and continuity: since 1914 women had won votes and the right to enter professions, but the marriage bar and lower pay show that attitudes had changed far less than the law.
Disabled people, apart from many ex-servicemen who received war pensions, had little help from the state. Most relied on their families, on charities or on local councils. When the Depression came, employers could pick from millions of unemployed people, and disabled workers were usually the last to be hired.
For many people, life meant living in an institution. The Mental Deficiency Act of 1913 allowed people judged to be "mentally defective" to be certified and kept in special hospitals and colonies, sometimes for life. These institutions were separate from ordinary society, and the people in them often had little say over their lives. Old workhouses, which became public assistance institutions in 1930, also housed many disabled and elderly people.
The aim was said to be protecting and caring for people. But the main idea was separation, not equality. Disabled people were not seen as having the same rights as other people.
Eugenics was a belief shared by many educated people in the early twentieth century. The word was invented in 1883 by Francis Galton, and supporters in Britain formed the Eugenics Education Society in 1907. They wrongly believed that qualities such as intelligence, poverty and disability were simply passed down in families, and that society would be healthier if people judged "unfit" had no children.
In the 1930s some supporters of eugenics called for the sterilisation of people they labelled "unfit", including disabled people. Britain never made sterilisation a law. A government committee led by Laurence Brock reported in 1934 and recommended that only voluntary sterilisation should be made legal. Even that was not turned into law.
Many people opposed it, including the Catholic Church, which saw it as wrong in principle, and many in the labour movement, who saw it as an attack on the poor. Doubts were also growing about whether the science was sound. After Nazi Germany brought in forced sterilisation in 1933 and later murdered disabled people, eugenics was widely rejected. Today it is seen as a discredited idea, based on false science and prejudice.
Even so, eugenic thinking left its mark: it helped to justify keeping people in institutions, and it shows how little equality disabled people had at the time.
Explain TWO causes of women having fewer job opportunities than men in Britain in the 1930s. [8 marks]
Remember: one cause alone can score no more than half marks.
One cause was the marriage bar. The civil service, many councils (for women teachers) and banks made women resign when they married, even after the 1919 Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act had opened professions to them. This meant that women could not build a long career, and employers knew that many women would leave, so they were less likely to train or promote them. The result was that the best jobs went mainly to men.
A second cause was the belief that a woman's place was in the home and that a man should be the main earner. This shaped the rules on benefits. In 1931 the Anomalies Regulations made it harder for married women to claim unemployment benefit, and women's benefit was paid at a lower rate than men's. During the Depression, when jobs were scarce, this attitude meant that men were given priority for work, and women were pushed towards low-paid jobs such as domestic service.
Each cause is backed by precise knowledge and shows how it led to women's lack of opportunities, which lifts it to the top level.
For "Explain TWO causes", write two separate paragraphs. In each one, name the cause, add a precise fact, then use the words "this meant that" to link it to the result.