The role of women in WW2

Preparation and Planning

This lesson involves students moving around the classroom to collect information. To safely facilitate this you may wish to ensure that the Student Worksheets are easy to locate and that all school bags etc are tucked under the desk to ensure safe travel around the room.

Episode 4 involves students creating a mind map as part of a small group. You will need to ensure that you have a sufficient number of A3 sheets of paper and a good selection of coloured pens.

About the MOD Topic

Information is provided on the following organisations and areas of work on Student Worksheets 1-16:

The Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA)
The Women's Land Army (WLA)
Factory Work
The Women's Voluntary Service (WVS)
The Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS)

Women's current role in the Army:

Women have played a vital role in the Armed Forces since at least the Second World War, when they were employed in a wide variety of roles, many of which exposed them to extreme danger.

After the War, it was recognised that women continued to have an important role to play in the Armed Forces, and the \'Women's Services\' were permanently established.
The early 1990s saw the most dramatic peacetime changes in their duties, with women serving in surface ships, as aircrew for the first time, and also in a much greater range of posts in the Army.

Around the same time, women's roles were fully divided into the three main Service branches - the Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force - and the separate Women's Services were abolished (the Women's Royal Air Force was never a separate Service, although the use of the term was discontinued).

Today, the contribution of Servicewomen to the combat effectiveness of the Armed Forces is essential. More women are serving in a greater variety of posts than ever before, many of them on the front line.

The proportion of jobs open to women is as follows:
Royal Navy: 71%
Army: 71%
RAF 96%

Women serve in all specialisations, except those where the primary duty is \'to close with and kill the enemy.\' Women are, therefore, excluded from the Royal Marines General Service (as Royal Marine Commandos), the Household Cavalry and Royal Armoured Corps, the Infantry and the Royal Air Force Regiment. The exclusion does not, however, prevent them serving as part of such units in administrative and support roles. For health reasons relating to breathable air mixtures, service aboard submarines or as mine clearance divers continues to be precluded.

Consistent with the UK's policy on the employment of Servicewomen, women deploy alongside their male counterparts with no restrictions on their deployment, unless they are pregnant.

The following figures (correct as of April 2008) indicate the volume of women in each of the services.

Army:
Total personnel male and female: 105090
Female Officers: 1640
Female Other Ranks: 6600
Percentage Female: 7.84%

Royal Navy:
Total personnel male and female: 35570
Female Officers: 700
Female Other Ranks 3680
Percentage Female: 9.54%

RAF:
Total personnel male and female: 43390
Female Officers: 1420
Female Other Ranks: 4290
Percentage Female: 13.15%

Total Services:
Total personnel male and female: 187060
Female Officers: 3760
Female Other Ranks: 13860
Percentage Female: 9.4%

The number of women in the Armed Forces is increasing steadily; over the last 5 years between 19% and 26% of the initial officer cadets in the RAF have been women.

Royal Navy
The majority of women choose to enter the Logistics and Warfare Branches, with a high percentage of the remainder selecting Medical Branches.

Army:
The percentage of female soldiers has remained constant over the last year but the % of female officers continues to increase steadily. Female Brigadiers are filling medical and pay and allowance policy jobs and there are female Colonels in several posts in the medical, dental, legal, educational, administrative, logistic and communications fields. One female Colonel is the senior Logistic Officer in a deployable Divisional headquarters
Women are increasingly filling more command appointments with two University Officer Training Corps and the Staff and Personnel Support Training School commanded by women. In addition, a female Lieutenant Colonel has been selected to assume command of a Royal Military Police unit and a female is set to command the high profile Kings Troop which is the Ceremonial Saluting Battery of the Royal Artillery. There are also an increasing number of females commanding Reserve Forces units.
Female personnel currently fill a variety of roles in operational theatres including Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans with a female currently ADC to a 2* General in Afghanistan.

RAF:
Female pilots are employed in various operational theatres, including Afghanistan and Iraq. The number of Servicewomen in command appointments continues to increase. For example, Operations Wing and the Central Air Traffic Control School at RAF Shawbury, are both commanded by women, and a female engineer has recently been appointed to the Brimstone Integrated Project Team based at MOD Abbey Wood.
Female Group Captains head up the RAF's recruitment organisation and its public relations department; additionally, there are female base commanders at RAF High Wycombe, RAF Fylingdales and Swanwick Military. Finally, four flying Squadrons in the Royal Air Force have female flight commanders. The high profile post of Team Manager of the Red Arrows, the world renowned aerobatics display team, will again be filled by a female this year.

Further Opportunities for Learning

Ask students to engage in a discussion about whether they think women have managed to achieve true equality in British society.

Show students Video: The role of women in the Second World War, which shows female ATA pilot in uniform as an extra visual stimulus.

Student worksheet answers

Download the teachers notes PDF to access the answers for this lesson.