20th
Century Scottish Women - Changing Roles
The
role played by women in Scottish society has changed more during
the 20th century than any other century in recorded history. The
roles of mother, wife, worker and fully enfranchised member of
society varied widely over the century and were dependent on an
age, status and class. When these roles began to change and
women's voices were heard in Scottish society, the benefits
weren't universal but first affected the top of the social pecking
order and filtered down through the middle classes to the working
class women who made up the majority. It was a long process of
inclusion and exclusion.
Prior to the First World War, which changed the female role in
society drastically as it did in most things, the role of women
was very much confined to life at home. This was something of a Victorian
ideal. Whether from the middle or the working classes it was deemed
by this most patriarchal culture to be unsavoury for a woman
to work in the sense of nurturing a career, and hence University
education and training was not a viable option. Work for
a middle class woman was seen as something which was done prior
to marriage, a hobby which was unpaid, or something done by spinsters
and widows who didn't have a man to bring home the bread. Such
work was often within the confines of nursing, teaching or childcare, and was never considered to be of as much value as male
work. In fact an equal wage package for male and female teachers
wasn't implemented until the 1950s.
In the working classes the situation was far worse. Industrial
Scotland, centred on Clydeside shipbuilding and engineering, was
extremely male orientated and for a woman to enter such work was
unthinkable before the war. Also, the birth rate amongst working
class women was considerably higher than amongst the middle classes.
It was quite common for women in the pre-war slums of Glasgow
to be cooking and cleaning for ten children, without any labour
saving devices, whilst working part-time to supplement the male
wage. Again none of this was really considered to be work, especially
if you were married because 'true labour' was considered the male
domain. A 1911 census showed that only 1 in 20 employed women
in Scotland were married, and although this demonstrates attitudes
to working women and their place in the family, the census undoubtedly
missed the vast amount of part-time work done by working class
women, which was often cleaning, cooking or childcare for the
wealthy, and was mainly off the books. The 
exception
to this was in Dundee where the Jute Mills employed mainly married
women, and unemployed women were regarded as lazy, whether married
or not.
There were several important factors which changed this situation
for women. During the First World War women started to fill the
places in factories which were left vacant by men fighting
in the trenches. This seems to have been something of a catalyst
for women as a group in society. It was a demonstration that women
were more than capable of doing work which was previously considered
to be the sole preserve of men. The situation amplified the political
voice of women in society and female Trade Union membership rose
accordingly. This is not to say that there was a sudden change
in gender relationships after the war. Those soldiers who survived
did return to work and the male Trade Unions didn't suddenly fling
the doors open to women (they were in fact quite bluntly told
to return home by many Trade Unionists), but women were now in
a far stronger bargaining position.
