Conscription wasn't introduced in Britain until 1916.
And? It still didn't apply to women.
Speaking of 1916, what was your homeland's sentiment during this time period of the war?
Oh yeah, your lot literally started a second armed front against Britain:
"In 1916, Irish republicans took the opportunity of the ongoing war to proclaim an independent Irish Republic and launch an armed rebellion against British rule in Dublin, which Germany attempted to help."Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ireland_and_World_War_I
And this is how the poet and Irish nationalist Francis Ledwidge summed things up at the time:
"If someone were to tell me now that the Germans were coming in over our back wall, I wouldn't lift a finger to stop them. They could come!"Source: irishcultureandcustoms.com/Poetry/FLedwidge.html
Anyway.
They volunteered - and there were already a few million women in the workforce before the war.
Lies.
"Though there was initial resistance to hiring women for what was seen as 'men's work', the introduction of conscription in 1916 made the need for women workers urgent. Around this time, the government began coordinating the employment of women through campaigns and recruitment drives."Source: striking-women.org/module/women-and-work/world-war-i-1914-1918
In other words, women had to be coaxed into work. Employers never wanted women anyway because they knew (just like it is today) that women are less productive than men.
It was only due to government intervention and being the majority buyer of industrial output to meet the war effort that companies relented and hired women. Read the rest of the article where it accounts that women were more interested in striking over pay and in turn were quickly let go by companies as soon as the war was over. The companies rationally paid men more thus proving the age old adage that for an honest day's work they will give an honest day's pay.
to have the common decency to respect the memory of women who lost their husbands and sons.
LOL!
If only women had the common decency to respect the memory of the husbands and sons they lost!
Clearly, you never heard the story of Mabel Beadsworth who was one of the first women to receive a war widows' pension.
Mabel was married to British Army Private Alec Beadsworth and had two children with him before he was killed in action in May 1915.
Then in January 1916 Mabel gave birth to a third child.
But rumors began to swirl about the true faithfulness of Mabel.
The local Pensions Office and Army Council got a tip off from Mabel's mother-in-law and an investigation found that Mabel's third child did not belong to her dead husband Alec but rather some other guy named Norton.
So Mabel was rightfully stripped of her pension obtained only due to the ultimate sacrifice made by her fallen hero husband Alec.
You can read this floozie's sob story here: warwidowsstories.org.uk/history/working-class-women-war-widows-pension-in-the-first-world-war/
Never mind though that the article admits that Mabel went on to have SEVERAL more children (11 in total!) with a string of other men.
Mabel, of course, is still portrayed as the victim in all this and as woman who was subjected to
"bureaucratic gaze and moral judgement."Spoiler alert: Fifteen years after Mabel lost her pension she was still writing to the government trying to get it back!
You think Mabel infidelity is an exception? Nope.
Not back in her time and certainly not now.
In a woman's world it is never about having actual respect for the men in their lives let alone in the rest of society.
Rather, for women, it's always about the money!
