One of the things that wars of national survival demand is that all citizens who are able to should ‘do their bit’ to defeat the enemy.

This was the situation that faced Britain in the 1939-45 war when it looked for a while as if Britain would become another casualty of the Nazis, like France, Belgium, the Nederlands and so many other places. That we did not is because of the countless numbers of British and Allied men and women who fought and helped Britain survive in a total war against Nazism.

This experience of ‘total war’ has had a profound effect on British society and it could be said that today’s women stand on the shoulders of those wartime women who were sometimes the first in their families to drive, work and fight. We are who we are today partially because Britain at war could not afford to not utilise the skills and labour of women.

Wartime was a time when distinctions of class and gender started to break down and people mixed with those who they normally would not have mixed with. The labour of women was essential to keep the troops supplied with war materiel, to watch the sky for bombers and in some cases defend our towns and cities from attack. If a British woman today can say ‘I am free’ then she should look back and thank her ancestors who did so much to broaden women’s horizons by taking their rightful place in the factories, gun batteries and offices of wartime Britain.

This weeks film, made in 1943, is called ‘The Gentle Sex’ and follows seven women from different backgrounds and life experience after they join the Auxilliary Territorial Services.

The film shows the women learning skills that they previously would not have needed such as driving and repairing trucks, parade ground drilling and operating anti aircraft weapons. The Gentle Sex is a patriotic salute to all those women who ‘did their bit’ and helped to save Britain from the murderous horror of Nazism.

I like this movie and I hope you like it too, it gives some inkling into how our fore-mothers fought and this gives me a sense of great pride and admiration for what they did.

Never after would British women be obedient or silent, and in my view that is a bloody good thing.  It is better for the genders to be equal and working together than be unequal and living in separate worlds.

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