Victorian social mores were originally strictly enforced, but as WWI developed, women began to reject the social mores to find work. Victorian social mores were paid less attention to by women in the years of the war, for women were needed to work and manufacture supplies for the war. As social mores were being questioned, women's organizations were making the situation worse for social mores by pushing for prohibition, the right to vote and suffrage. Victorian social mores faced many challenges around the turn of the century but the most prominent obstacles were women.
World War I had a large effect on women overcoming Victorian social mores.
Canada was unprepared for WWI, as it was expected to be a very short war but ended up being over 4 years long. As a result, Canadians manufacturers and suppliers could not cope with production demands. Manufacturers and producers needed more workers, but many able-bodied Canadian men were off fighting for their country; this is when women stepped in. Women broke through the rules that guided their lives to help out their country when it was in its greatest need. Canada needed workers for manufacturing plants and women were those workers. Many women came together and found work in assembly lines, munitions factories, and the civil service. Approximately 2400 women took an even greater leap of defiance and enlisted as nurses who served in British hospitals and in field hospitals. Many women abandoned the social mores to aid their society.
Due to the demand for workers, coupled with the fact that Canada's men were at war, women began entering the workplace and going against social mores more rapidly than ever before. In 1891, women accounted for 14.3 percent of clerical workers in Canada; that figure had increased to 41.8 percent by 1921 and in 1901, one in six Canadian workers was female. Women accounted for 25 percent of all manufacturing and mechanical workers, and mo
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