The social impact of total war was no less profound than the economic impact, though again there were important national variations. The military’s insatiable needs — nearly every belligerent power resorted to conscription to put soldiers in the field — created a tremendous demand for workers at home. This situation — seldom, if ever, seen before 1914 — brought about momentous changes.

One such change was increased power and prestige for labor unions. Unions cooperated with war governments in return for real participation in important decisions. This entry of labor leaders into policymaking councils paralleled the entry of socialist leaders into the war governments.

Women’s roles also changed dramatically. In every belligerent country, large numbers of women left home and domestic service to work in industry, transportation, and offices. A former parlor maid reportedly told her boyfriend as he prepared to leave for France:

While you are at the front firing shells, I am going into a munitions factory to make shells. The job will not be as well paid as domestic service, it will not be as comfortable as domestic service; it will be much harder work, but it will be my bit, and every time you fire your gun you can remember I am helping to make the shells.7

Moreover, women became highly visible — not only as munitions workers but as bank tellers, mail carriers, and even police officers. Women also served as nurses and doctors at the front. (See “Individuals in Society: Vera Brittain.”) In general, the war greatly expanded the range of women’s activities and changed attitudes toward women. Although at war’s end most women were quickly let go and their jobs were given back to the returning soldiers, their many-sided war effort caused Britain, Germany, and Austria to grant them the right to vote immediately after the war.

Recent scholarship has shown, however, that traditional views of gender — of male roles and female roles — remained remarkably resilient and that there was a significant conservative backlash in the postwar years. Even as the war progressed, many men, particularly soldiers, grew increasingly hostile toward women. Some were angry at mothers, wives, and girlfriends for urging them to enlist and fight in the horrible war. Suggestive posters of scantily clad women were used to remind men of the rewards they would receive for enlisting and fighting, while soldiers with wives and girlfriends back home grew increasingly convinced that they were cheating on them. Others worried that factory or farm jobs had been taken by women and there would be no work when they returned home. Men were also concerned that if women received the vote at war’s end, they would vote themselves into power. These concerns, as well as anxiety over women losing their femininity, are reflected in a letter from Private G. F. Wilby, serving in East Africa, to his fiancée in London, Ethel Baxter, in August 1918:

Whatever you do, don’t go in Munitions or anything in that line — just fill a Woman’s position and remain a woman. . . . I want to return and find the same loveable little woman that I left behind — not a coarse thing more of a man than a woman.8

War promoted social equality, blurring class distinctions and lessening the gap between rich and poor. Greater equality was reflected in full employment, rationing according to physical needs, and a sharing of hardships. Society became more uniform and more egalitarian.