Women In The Twentieth Century

Over the course of the 20th Century, women in Europe began to enter the workforce in larger numbers than seen in previous years. In earlier years, women were discouraged from pursuing careers outside of raising children due to the male dominated society and the fixed gender roles of the times. However, throughout the 1900s, more women began to enter the workforce in fields such as nurses, teachers, and textile workers. There were many new factors during the 20th century that made it advantageous for women to work. The three important factors that led to the expansion of women 's participation in the paid workforce in Europe over the course of the twentieth century were new technological innovations, the outbreak of the World Wars, and increasing …show more content…
For example, in Britain, the wide spread use of electric typewriters by the 1950s increased the rate and accuracy of typists, mostly women, which led to an increase in typists positions to be filled by more women ("New Technology in the Workplace"). The reason that women were now more responsive to an increase in available job positions is because it took less overall skill and time. In addition, the introduction of the automated telephone to the public also helped make lives easier for the women working as secretaries or assistants. By 1950, most of London was using automated telephone systems ("New Technology in the Workplace"). This also gave incentive for more women to enter the workforce with less of a struggle. The final technological advancement that made working more appealing for women was the internet. By the end of the twentieth century, the internet was becoming increasingly available for use by the public. One major advantage to the internet was that people could work from home by telecommuting, or working with a group or boss over the internet (Mallus, "Telecommuting: the Workplace of the 90 's"). With telecommuting, women could still have a rewarding and stress reducing job while also raising kids and running a household. The Internet and telecommuting greatly increased the ways that women could enter and participate in the …show more content…
For example, many women had more time to enter the workforce because they stopped having so many kids in an urban environment. This was because in a smaller living space, they could not house and feed so many kids ("Urbanization - The Social Impacts Of Urbanization"). This lessened the amount of time that a women had to raise her children so she could go out and earn money for the household. In addition, as in most populated cities, cities in Europe had a higher standard of living due to them being hubs of commerce, entertainment, and employment. Due to this higher standard of living, it was occasionally necessary for women to obtain jobs as seamstresses, domestic service workers, and teachers in order to provide for their households along with their husbands. Lastly, in his book, Peter Stearns argues that urban society in the early to mid twentieth century experienced a boom of consumerism, such as the rapid increase of department stores and cheaper restaurants (Stearns, "Consumerism in World History: The Global Transformation of Desire"). This large increase in consumerism led to more job openings for service positions that women could fill in order to afford consumer goods. This cycle increased the number of woman in the paid workforce and an increase in consumerism simultaneously. Ultimately, the shift from the countryside