WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.399 Welcome to The Deep Dive. We are just so incredibly 00:00:03.399 --> 00:00:05.139 glad you're here joining us today. Yeah, thanks 00:00:05.139 --> 00:00:07.240 for listening. You know, when we usually picture 00:00:07.240 --> 00:00:10.660 World War I, it is almost impossible not to conjure 00:00:10.660 --> 00:00:14.699 up a very specific, almost cinematic image in 00:00:14.699 --> 00:00:17.079 our heads. Right. I mean, everyone sees the muddy 00:00:17.079 --> 00:00:20.120 trenches. Exactly. The mud, the barbed wire, 00:00:20.239 --> 00:00:22.800 and just this endless sea of men in uniform. 00:00:23.100 --> 00:00:25.800 But for this deep dive, we are taking a stack 00:00:25.800 --> 00:00:28.500 of notes from a remarkably comprehensive Wikipedia 00:00:28.500 --> 00:00:31.019 article. It really is extensive. It is. It's 00:00:31.019 --> 00:00:34.140 simply titled Women in World War I. And we are 00:00:34.140 --> 00:00:36.659 going on a specific mission with this one. Our 00:00:36.659 --> 00:00:40.020 goal today is to completely shatter that monolithic 00:00:40.020 --> 00:00:43.100 male -centric image of the Great War. Because 00:00:43.100 --> 00:00:45.520 it's just not the whole story. Not at all. We 00:00:45.520 --> 00:00:48.119 want to show you the astonishing, multifaceted, 00:00:48.460 --> 00:00:50.700 and honestly deeply dangerous roles that women 00:00:50.700 --> 00:00:52.920 played all across the globe. We're talking about 00:00:52.920 --> 00:00:54.880 everything from the home front to the actual 00:00:54.880 --> 00:00:57.460 front lines. Okay, let's unpack this. Because 00:00:57.460 --> 00:00:59.500 looking through these sources, it is clear that 00:00:59.500 --> 00:01:01.619 women weren't just, you know, passively waiting 00:01:01.619 --> 00:01:04.200 for the men to return. No, absolutely not. But 00:01:04.200 --> 00:01:06.680 they also weren't all just drafted into service 00:01:06.680 --> 00:01:08.959 by their governments either. There seemed to 00:01:08.959 --> 00:01:12.099 be a massive spectrum of reasons why women stepped 00:01:12.099 --> 00:01:14.939 into the fray. It's a profound shift in perspective 00:01:14.939 --> 00:01:17.540 when you look at the sheer scale of it. And you're 00:01:17.540 --> 00:01:19.700 spot -on about the motivations. It wasn't some 00:01:19.700 --> 00:01:22.659 single unified mindset. Right. For some women, 00:01:23.250 --> 00:01:25.250 Participation was deeply personal. They wanted 00:01:25.250 --> 00:01:28.489 to prove their worth or they felt a patriotic 00:01:28.489 --> 00:01:31.349 duty to actively support their loved ones who 00:01:31.349 --> 00:01:33.849 were fighting. They saw a chance to do more than 00:01:33.849 --> 00:01:36.790 what society traditionally boxed in as, quote 00:01:36.790 --> 00:01:39.209 unquote, women's work. Yeah. But we also have 00:01:39.209 --> 00:01:41.430 to look at the highly strategic side of this. 00:01:41.849 --> 00:01:44.409 A massive portion of women firmly believed that 00:01:44.409 --> 00:01:46.870 making themselves indispensable to the war effort 00:01:46.870 --> 00:01:49.390 was the ultimate leverage to finally secure the 00:01:49.390 --> 00:01:51.510 right to vote. The ultimate bargaining chip like 00:01:51.510 --> 00:01:53.909 we kept the country. Now give us the ballot. 00:01:54.450 --> 00:01:56.409 Precisely. And the thorough material shows that 00:01:56.409 --> 00:01:59.530 this strategy actually yielded huge gains during 00:01:59.530 --> 00:02:02.049 and right after the war. Oh really? Oh yeah. 00:02:02.370 --> 00:02:04.609 Places like Denmark and Iceland granted full 00:02:04.609 --> 00:02:07.629 suffrage to women in 1915. Wow. Right in the 00:02:07.629 --> 00:02:10.580 middle of the war. Exactly. The U .K. passed 00:02:10.580 --> 00:02:13.699 a major suffrage law in 1918 that was directly 00:02:13.699 --> 00:02:16.620 tied to women's wartime contributions, and the 00:02:16.620 --> 00:02:19.219 U .S. eventually followed suit. But then on the 00:02:19.219 --> 00:02:21.360 completely opposite end of the spectrum, you 00:02:21.360 --> 00:02:23.780 had women whose participation was defined by 00:02:23.780 --> 00:02:26.900 active resistance to the war itself. That's fascinating. 00:02:27.060 --> 00:02:30.199 Consider the 1 ,000 women who braved heavily 00:02:30.199 --> 00:02:33.240 restricted, dangerous wartime travel to attend 00:02:33.240 --> 00:02:36.460 the 1915 Women's Peace Congress in the Netherlands. 00:02:36.740 --> 00:02:39.800 A thousand women. Yes, they were actively protesting 00:02:39.800 --> 00:02:42.120 the violence and trying to persuade world leaders 00:02:42.120 --> 00:02:44.699 to negotiate an end to the slaughter. I love 00:02:44.699 --> 00:02:46.379 that right from the start, we're seeing women 00:02:46.379 --> 00:02:49.199 as political strategists, peace activists and 00:02:49.199 --> 00:02:52.050 patriots. But I want to move to the actual front 00:02:52.050 --> 00:02:54.449 lines, because the storytellers and the rule 00:02:54.449 --> 00:02:57.169 breakers of this era are just mind blowing. They 00:02:57.169 --> 00:02:59.389 really are. Imagine being a female journalist 00:02:59.389 --> 00:03:02.370 at this time. You are facing all the usual lethal 00:03:02.370 --> 00:03:05.330 dangers of a war zone, plus a military establishment 00:03:05.330 --> 00:03:07.669 that absolutely does not want you anywhere near 00:03:07.669 --> 00:03:10.509 the action. There's a story in the notes about 00:03:10.509 --> 00:03:13.530 Dorothy Lawrence that is just wild. Her story 00:03:13.530 --> 00:03:16.449 is incredible. She was an aspiring English journalist 00:03:16.449 --> 00:03:19.120 and she realized very quickly that The military 00:03:19.120 --> 00:03:21.099 wasn't going to just hand her a press pass to 00:03:21.099 --> 00:03:23.500 the trenches. No way. So she took matters into 00:03:23.500 --> 00:03:25.539 her own hands. Right. She actually disguised 00:03:25.539 --> 00:03:28.840 herself as a male soldier. The notes say she 00:03:28.840 --> 00:03:32.520 posed as a sapper for the Royal Engineers. What 00:03:32.520 --> 00:03:35.939 exactly did a sapper do in World War I? Because 00:03:35.939 --> 00:03:37.780 it doesn't sound like a desk job. And not at 00:03:37.780 --> 00:03:40.219 all. A sapper is basically a combat engineer. 00:03:40.620 --> 00:03:43.139 Think of the most grueling, dangerous physical 00:03:43.139 --> 00:03:45.520 labor you can imagine in a war zone. Oh, wow. 00:03:45.639 --> 00:03:47.699 They were the ones digging the complex trench 00:03:47.699 --> 00:03:50.360 networks, laying landmines, repairing defenses 00:03:50.360 --> 00:03:53.039 under heavy fire. It was brutal work. And she 00:03:53.039 --> 00:03:55.370 just joined them. Yeah, Dorothy Lawrence managed 00:03:55.370 --> 00:03:58.069 to infiltrate this world. She bound her chest, 00:03:58.389 --> 00:04:00.430 wore a corset to flatten her figure, and actually 00:04:00.430 --> 00:04:02.669 made it to the front lines in France. She was 00:04:02.669 --> 00:04:05.129 doing heavy combat engineering in a corset. Yes, 00:04:05.229 --> 00:04:07.530 which makes the physical toll even more staggering. 00:04:07.919 --> 00:04:11.000 She managed to stay undercover for 10 whole days, 00:04:11.400 --> 00:04:13.419 living in the mud and the terror of the trenches. 00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:17.079 Before the sheer physical exhaustion, the difficulty 00:04:17.079 --> 00:04:19.920 breathing and failing health forced her to turn 00:04:19.920 --> 00:04:22.319 herself in to the commanding officers. I have 00:04:22.319 --> 00:04:25.160 to imagine the British military command did not 00:04:25.160 --> 00:04:28.379 take kindly to a female journalist exposing how 00:04:28.379 --> 00:04:31.100 easy it was to slip past their security. What 00:04:31.100 --> 00:04:33.850 happened to her? They panicked. They were terrified 00:04:33.850 --> 00:04:36.930 of the public relations nightmare. She was essentially 00:04:36.930 --> 00:04:39.689 detained, interrogated, and forced to swear herself 00:04:39.689 --> 00:04:42.269 to silence. That is awful. And the tragedy is, 00:04:42.290 --> 00:04:44.470 even when she tried to publish her book after 00:04:44.470 --> 00:04:46.910 the war, which was titled Sapper Dorothy Lawrence, 00:04:47.449 --> 00:04:49.930 it was so heavily censored by the authorities 00:04:49.930 --> 00:04:53.430 that it completely flopped. The War Office effectively 00:04:53.430 --> 00:04:55.769 erased her from the narrative. Erased for trying 00:04:55.769 --> 00:04:58.569 to tell the unvarnished truth, which, as we keep 00:04:58.569 --> 00:05:00.529 seeing in these sources, was a massive threat 00:05:00.529 --> 00:05:02.689 to the authorities. It wasn't just journalists 00:05:02.689 --> 00:05:05.329 getting silenced. It was anyone who didn't stick 00:05:05.329 --> 00:05:08.350 to the heroic script. The governments heavily, 00:05:08.350 --> 00:05:11.029 heavily curated the narrative of the war. They 00:05:11.029 --> 00:05:13.350 needed a constant stream of young men willing 00:05:13.350 --> 00:05:16.009 to enlist, which meant they needed stories of 00:05:16.009 --> 00:05:18.930 glory, honor, and heroism. Right, the propaganda 00:05:18.930 --> 00:05:21.839 machine. Exactly. They absolutely did not want 00:05:21.839 --> 00:05:24.379 the bloody reality published. A prime example 00:05:24.379 --> 00:05:26.899 of this is the American nurse and author Ellen 00:05:26.899 --> 00:05:30.139 Lamott. In 1916, she wrote a book called The 00:05:30.139 --> 00:05:32.600 Backwash of War. Because she was actually there, 00:05:32.620 --> 00:05:34.639 right? Yes. She was a nurse working in a French 00:05:34.639 --> 00:05:37.819 field hospital in Belgium. So she saw the direct 00:05:37.819 --> 00:05:40.879 aftermath of artillery and gas. And I imagine 00:05:40.879 --> 00:05:42.939 she didn't write about glorious charges over 00:05:42.939 --> 00:05:45.899 the top. Far from it. Her book focused on the 00:05:45.899 --> 00:05:48.879 agonizing, unglamorous, terrifying deaths of 00:05:48.879 --> 00:05:51.860 soldiers. She wrote about men dying slowly of 00:05:51.860 --> 00:05:54.199 gangrene, crying out for their mothers. God, 00:05:54.199 --> 00:05:56.379 that's dark. It was completely stripping away 00:05:56.379 --> 00:05:58.620 the romantic myth of combat. It was brutally 00:05:58.620 --> 00:06:00.800 honest. And because of that honesty, the book 00:06:00.800 --> 00:06:02.699 was banned in France. It was banned in Great 00:06:02.699 --> 00:06:04.819 Britain. And the moment the United States entered 00:06:04.819 --> 00:06:07.560 the war, it was banned there too. It is wild 00:06:07.560 --> 00:06:10.490 to think about a nurse. someone actively saving 00:06:10.490 --> 00:06:13.170 lives, being treated as a threat to national 00:06:13.170 --> 00:06:16.069 security just for writing down what she saw during 00:06:16.069 --> 00:06:18.529 her shift. What's fascinating here is the underlying 00:06:18.529 --> 00:06:21.110 reason why these female writers were so threatening 00:06:21.110 --> 00:06:23.790 to the establishment. Think about it. Women were 00:06:23.790 --> 00:06:26.329 generally outside the military hierarchy. Oh, 00:06:26.329 --> 00:06:30.149 I see. They weren't bound by the male macho code 00:06:30.149 --> 00:06:33.189 of wartime glory. Because they were outsiders, 00:06:33.670 --> 00:06:36.230 they were free to report the unglamorous truth, 00:06:36.269 --> 00:06:39.370 making them a unique threat to wartime propaganda. 00:06:39.490 --> 00:06:41.829 That makes total sense. Look at Mary Ethel McCauley. 00:06:42.009 --> 00:06:44.370 She was an American artist and war correspondent 00:06:44.370 --> 00:06:47.089 who spent two years in Germany. She published 00:06:47.089 --> 00:06:50.970 Germany in wartime in 1917. OK. But because the 00:06:50.970 --> 00:06:53.600 book depicted ordinary Germans, citizens suffering 00:06:53.600 --> 00:06:56.180 and facing starvation due to the Allied blockades, 00:06:56.620 --> 00:06:59.180 the U .S. government deemed it far too sympathetic 00:06:59.180 --> 00:07:01.839 to the enemy. As soon as the U .S. entered the 00:07:01.839 --> 00:07:04.180 war, the government literally seized her book. 00:07:04.300 --> 00:07:06.959 They confiscated it because empathy for starving 00:07:06.959 --> 00:07:09.579 civilians ruined the narrative that all Germans 00:07:09.579 --> 00:07:12.310 were monsters. It really highlights how tightly 00:07:12.310 --> 00:07:14.529 controlled information was, but if the front 00:07:14.529 --> 00:07:16.350 lines and the press were tightly controlled, 00:07:16.670 --> 00:07:19.350 the home front was undergoing a massive chaotic 00:07:19.350 --> 00:07:22.089 transformation. Oh, completely upended. The sheer 00:07:22.089 --> 00:07:25.110 industrial output required to fight this war 00:07:25.110 --> 00:07:28.529 was staggering. I want to shift to the munitions 00:07:28.529 --> 00:07:31.310 factories in Britain. I was reading about the 00:07:31.310 --> 00:07:33.290 munitionettes, who were mostly working class 00:07:33.290 --> 00:07:36.110 women. typically between the ages of 18 and 29. 00:07:36.250 --> 00:07:39.209 The backbone of the war. And the conditions describe, 00:07:39.209 --> 00:07:42.189 I mean, strip away all modern OSHA safety gear. 00:07:42.290 --> 00:07:45.050 We are talking about environments that were lethal 00:07:45.050 --> 00:07:47.769 before a bomb even went off. The scale of their 00:07:47.769 --> 00:07:50.509 work is hard to overstate. With millions of men 00:07:50.509 --> 00:07:53.250 conscripted, these women were stepping into massive 00:07:53.250 --> 00:07:55.670 industrial complexes to manufacture the very 00:07:55.670 --> 00:07:58.350 exclusives keeping the war going. The sources 00:07:58.350 --> 00:08:01.410 specifically highlight HM factory, Gretna, which 00:08:01.410 --> 00:08:04.279 was the UK's largest cordite factory. For you 00:08:04.279 --> 00:08:06.980 listening, cordite is a type of smokeless propellant 00:08:06.980 --> 00:08:09.939 used in artillery shells. And the process of 00:08:09.939 --> 00:08:12.439 making it sounds terrifying. What were these 00:08:12.439 --> 00:08:14.800 women actually doing day to day? They were doing 00:08:14.800 --> 00:08:16.959 the chemical mixing. Specifically, they were 00:08:16.959 --> 00:08:20.180 mixing gun cotton and nitroglycerin by hand in 00:08:20.180 --> 00:08:23.360 massive vats. Yes, and nitroglycerin is incredibly 00:08:23.360 --> 00:08:26.040 unstable. A slight change in temperature or a 00:08:26.040 --> 00:08:28.000 sudden jolt could level the entire building. 00:08:28.300 --> 00:08:31.560 It was such a volatile, terrifying mixture that 00:08:31.560 --> 00:08:33.919 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock 00:08:33.919 --> 00:08:37.220 Holmes, visited the factory and dubbed the mixture 00:08:37.220 --> 00:08:40.799 The Devil's Courage. The Devil's Courage. That 00:08:40.799 --> 00:08:43.379 paints a picture. But they weren't just risking 00:08:43.379 --> 00:08:46.419 instantaneous death from explosions. The day 00:08:46.419 --> 00:08:49.039 -to -day exposure to these chemicals was actively 00:08:49.039 --> 00:08:51.700 destroying their bodies. The notes mention they 00:08:51.700 --> 00:08:54.580 earned a nickname Canaries. Yes, and the reason 00:08:54.580 --> 00:08:57.700 for that nickname is quite grim. The toxic chemicals 00:08:57.700 --> 00:09:00.779 they worked with, specifically TNT, caused severe 00:09:00.779 --> 00:09:03.279 jaundice and liver damage, which literally turned 00:09:03.279 --> 00:09:05.559 their skin bright yellow. Turned their skin yellow. 00:09:05.840 --> 00:09:08.120 That is horrifying. They suffered from horrific 00:09:08.120 --> 00:09:10.980 illnesses, TNT poisoning, severe respiratory 00:09:10.980 --> 00:09:13.580 issues, even the breakdown of their blood. So 00:09:13.580 --> 00:09:15.580 you have women turning yellow and slowly dying 00:09:15.580 --> 00:09:18.679 in TNT factories in Britain. But this kind of 00:09:18.679 --> 00:09:21.529 home front hardship wasn't localized. The sources 00:09:21.529 --> 00:09:23.990 show that the specific flavor of suffering just 00:09:23.990 --> 00:09:26.590 changed depending on where you lived. The global 00:09:26.590 --> 00:09:29.289 socioeconomic collapse was universal, but the 00:09:29.289 --> 00:09:32.909 friction it caused varied wildly. If we widen 00:09:32.909 --> 00:09:35.830 the lens to the Ottoman Empire, we see the Islamic 00:09:35.830 --> 00:09:39.009 organization for the employment of women or the 00:09:39.009 --> 00:09:41.830 I .O .E .W. Okay, what did they do? They organized 00:09:41.830 --> 00:09:44.470 and placed women into military footwear factories 00:09:44.470 --> 00:09:47.409 like the massive facility in Bako's which employed 00:09:47.409 --> 00:09:51.149 over 900 women. But outside those factory walls, 00:09:51.389 --> 00:09:53.470 the situation for village women was a desperate 00:09:53.470 --> 00:09:56.909 struggle for pure survival. With the men gone, 00:09:57.110 --> 00:09:59.450 these women had to shoulder the entire agricultural 00:09:59.450 --> 00:10:02.429 burden. But the tragedy was they faced starvation 00:10:02.429 --> 00:10:05.250 anyway because the military routinely requisitioned 00:10:05.250 --> 00:10:07.570 their grain, grain meant for the women's own 00:10:07.570 --> 00:10:10.629 families, with little to no compensation. The 00:10:10.629 --> 00:10:12.950 military even commandeered their physical homes 00:10:12.950 --> 00:10:15.710 for strategic use, forcing women and children 00:10:15.710 --> 00:10:19.080 to sleep outside under the trees. kind of home 00:10:19.080 --> 00:10:21.220 front nightmare. You're either breathing in toxic 00:10:21.220 --> 00:10:23.919 fumes, making artillery shells, or you're starving 00:10:23.919 --> 00:10:25.720 under a tree because the army took your house. 00:10:25.960 --> 00:10:28.240 Exactly. And wartime scarcity does something 00:10:28.240 --> 00:10:31.700 terrible to a society. It inevitably turns citizens 00:10:31.700 --> 00:10:33.970 against each other. People start looking for 00:10:33.970 --> 00:10:36.070 someone to blame. Right. The text points out 00:10:36.070 --> 00:10:39.870 a fascinating, if dark, example of this societal 00:10:39.870 --> 00:10:43.009 policing in the German Empire. Germany was hit 00:10:43.009 --> 00:10:45.370 incredibly hard by food shortages due to the 00:10:45.370 --> 00:10:47.870 Allied blockades. The working class was forced 00:10:47.870 --> 00:10:50.970 to survive on kebrat, which was a widely maligned 00:10:50.970 --> 00:10:53.690 inferior bread made largely from potatoes and 00:10:53.690 --> 00:10:55.990 fillers. Right. People were desperate. But the 00:10:55.990 --> 00:10:59.080 notes say that amid all this starvation, A fierce 00:10:59.080 --> 00:11:01.620 social resentment started brewing specifically 00:11:01.620 --> 00:11:04.779 against soldiers' wives. Why them? Because of 00:11:04.779 --> 00:11:06.899 the military pensions they received and, more 00:11:06.899 --> 00:11:09.080 importantly, how society perceived they were 00:11:09.080 --> 00:11:11.820 spending them. When domestic economies collapse, 00:11:12.200 --> 00:11:14.980 people look for scapegoats. The public and even 00:11:14.980 --> 00:11:17.440 the police fiercely judge these women if they 00:11:17.440 --> 00:11:20.059 dare to eat wheat bread or enjoy a slice of cake 00:11:20.059 --> 00:11:22.120 and whipped cream at a café. Cake and whipped 00:11:22.120 --> 00:11:24.679 cream. Yeah, there was this intense societal 00:11:24.679 --> 00:11:27.500 policing of women's behavior. The police actually 00:11:27.500 --> 00:11:30.240 complained that these women weren't fitting the 00:11:30.240 --> 00:11:33.259 idealized, propagandized image of the frugal 00:11:33.259 --> 00:11:36.240 wartime homemaker. One officer formally complained 00:11:36.240 --> 00:11:38.480 that soldiers' wives were untouched by despair 00:11:38.480 --> 00:11:41.539 and shouldn't be occupying cafes sampling delicacies 00:11:41.539 --> 00:11:44.210 while the nation suffered. That is just so telling. 00:11:44.389 --> 00:11:46.929 The entire global economy is collapsing. Millions 00:11:46.929 --> 00:11:49.990 of men are dying. But society still finds the 00:11:49.990 --> 00:11:53.350 time to form a mob because a soldier's wife eat 00:11:53.350 --> 00:11:56.190 a piece of cake. It really is wild. It really 00:11:56.190 --> 00:11:58.509 underscores how women are often the first scapegoats 00:11:58.509 --> 00:12:01.330 when domestic stability fractures. But let's 00:12:01.330 --> 00:12:03.269 transition from the toxicity of the factories 00:12:03.269 --> 00:12:05.809 and the scarcity of the home front to the direct 00:12:05.809 --> 00:12:07.730 result of all those new weapons being built. 00:12:08.490 --> 00:12:11.409 The medical need must have been absolutely unimaginable. 00:12:12.139 --> 00:12:14.440 Unprecedented is the only word for it. The scale 00:12:14.440 --> 00:12:16.700 of medical support provided by women during World 00:12:16.700 --> 00:12:19.080 War I reshaped modern medicine. We're talking 00:12:19.080 --> 00:12:22.419 about over 21 ,000 U .S. Army nurses alone stepping 00:12:22.419 --> 00:12:24.059 into the void. And they weren't just treating 00:12:24.059 --> 00:12:26.519 standard gunshot wounds. The weapons were completely 00:12:26.519 --> 00:12:29.700 novel. They were. The medical community literally 00:12:29.700 --> 00:12:32.279 did not have protocols for things like chlorine 00:12:32.279 --> 00:12:35.679 or mustard gas attacks before this war. The source 00:12:35.679 --> 00:12:38.299 material specifically highlights Canadian nurses 00:12:38.299 --> 00:12:41.559 who became internationally famous for their constant 00:12:41.559 --> 00:12:44.759 soothing care of these agonizing gas victims. 00:12:44.940 --> 00:12:47.019 They were figuring it out as they went. Exactly. 00:12:47.659 --> 00:12:50.559 They were inventing modern trauma and respiratory 00:12:50.559 --> 00:12:53.620 care on the fly, intense mere miles from the 00:12:53.620 --> 00:12:56.440 artillery lines. And doing so at incredible personal 00:12:56.440 --> 00:12:59.960 risk. The notes mention Edith Cavell, who is 00:12:59.960 --> 00:13:01.779 probably one of the most famous figures to come 00:13:01.779 --> 00:13:04.200 out of this era. She is a towering figure of 00:13:04.200 --> 00:13:06.600 defiance. Cavell was a British nurse working 00:13:06.600 --> 00:13:09.659 in occupied Belgium. True to her medical oath, 00:13:10.080 --> 00:13:11.940 she treated injured soldiers from both sides 00:13:11.940 --> 00:13:13.980 of the conflict without prejudice. Both sides? 00:13:14.159 --> 00:13:16.919 Yes, but she went a step further. She actively 00:13:16.919 --> 00:13:19.320 used her position to help allied soldiers escape 00:13:19.320 --> 00:13:21.460 from behind enemy lines, funneling them into 00:13:21.460 --> 00:13:23.809 the neutral Netherlands. When the Germans uncovered 00:13:23.809 --> 00:13:26.629 her resistance network in 1915, she was tried 00:13:26.629 --> 00:13:29.370 and executed. Her death wasn't just a localized 00:13:29.370 --> 00:13:32.049 tragedy. It sparked an international outrage 00:13:32.049 --> 00:13:34.269 that caused enlistment numbers in the British 00:13:34.269 --> 00:13:37.490 Army to absolutely soar. She became a massive 00:13:37.490 --> 00:13:40.690 symbol for the Allied cause. But as dangerous 00:13:40.690 --> 00:13:43.330 as the enemy was or the artillery or the threat 00:13:43.330 --> 00:13:46.490 of execution, here's where it gets really interesting. 00:13:47.230 --> 00:13:49.750 The deadliest threat to these nurses wasn't human 00:13:49.750 --> 00:13:52.940 at all. No, it was an invisible enemy. The 1918 00:13:52.940 --> 00:13:55.379 flu pandemic. And this wasn't like catching a 00:13:55.379 --> 00:13:58.220 bad cold. This was a historically lethal virus. 00:13:58.360 --> 00:14:00.980 It was devastating. And during the 1918 flu, 00:14:01.179 --> 00:14:03.679 the medical world didn't have strong antiviral 00:14:03.679 --> 00:14:06.399 medicines or antibiotics to treat secondary infections. 00:14:06.940 --> 00:14:09.299 The only real treatment was intensive. round 00:14:09.299 --> 00:14:11.000 -the -clock nursing care. Right, just keeping 00:14:11.000 --> 00:14:13.100 them alive. Lowering fevers, keeping patients 00:14:13.100 --> 00:14:16.159 hydrated, maintaining strict sanitation. Nurses 00:14:16.159 --> 00:14:18.440 became the primary and often the only defense 00:14:18.440 --> 00:14:21.379 against the virus, and it cost them dearly. For 00:14:21.379 --> 00:14:23.559 you listening, consider this staggering statistic 00:14:23.559 --> 00:14:27.059 from the text. Out of the 134 United States Army 00:14:27.059 --> 00:14:29.039 nurse deaths during the entirety of World War 00:14:29.039 --> 00:14:33.700 I, 127 of them were caused by disease. 127 out 00:14:33.700 --> 00:14:37.159 of 134. Not by enemy attacks, not by shrapnel. 00:14:37.450 --> 00:14:40.110 by the invisible illnesses they contracted while 00:14:40.110 --> 00:14:42.690 trying to save others. That is incredibly sobering. 00:14:42.950 --> 00:14:45.009 It completely reshapes where you imagine the 00:14:45.009 --> 00:14:47.309 front line actually was. But speaking of the 00:14:47.309 --> 00:14:49.250 literal front line, we also have to talk about 00:14:49.250 --> 00:14:52.389 the women who actively sought out combat. Because 00:14:52.389 --> 00:14:54.529 the sources make it clear, women didn't just 00:14:54.529 --> 00:14:56.529 treat the wounded or build the bombs. Some of 00:14:56.529 --> 00:14:58.750 them actually picked up rifles. They did, though 00:14:58.750 --> 00:15:00.429 it's a part of the history that is frequently 00:15:00.429 --> 00:15:03.409 overlooked or dismissed as myth. But the records 00:15:03.409 --> 00:15:05.470 are clear. I am so eager to share this part. 00:15:05.690 --> 00:15:09.830 In 1917, the Russian Provisional Government actually 00:15:09.830 --> 00:15:13.429 deployed official all -female combat units. They 00:15:13.429 --> 00:15:15.629 were known as the Women's Battalions of Death. 00:15:15.769 --> 00:15:18.590 What a name! Right. They were led by a woman 00:15:18.590 --> 00:15:20.990 named Maria Bakhareva who had petitioned and 00:15:20.990 --> 00:15:23.330 received personal permission from the Tsar to 00:15:23.330 --> 00:15:26.600 fight. And then you have Serbia. In Serbia, women 00:15:26.600 --> 00:15:29.419 took up arms out of sheer desperate necessity 00:15:29.419 --> 00:15:32.179 to defend their homeland from invasion. You have 00:15:32.179 --> 00:15:34.419 figures like Milunka Savic who fought throughout 00:15:34.419 --> 00:15:37.879 the war and famously captured 23 enemy soldiers 00:15:37.879 --> 00:15:40.120 single -handedly during the Battle of the Krona 00:15:40.120 --> 00:15:43.100 Bend. Capturing 23 soldiers single -handedly 00:15:43.100 --> 00:15:45.460 completely upends the traditional narrative of 00:15:45.460 --> 00:15:48.240 the passive female civilian. And this defiance 00:15:48.240 --> 00:15:50.279 of traditional roles extended into the shadows 00:15:50.279 --> 00:15:53.700 as well, into the highly dangerous world of espionage. 00:15:53.980 --> 00:15:57.360 Spies. Yes. We touched on Edith Cavell's resistance, 00:15:57.460 --> 00:16:00.059 but there were women actively working as intelligence 00:16:00.059 --> 00:16:02.799 assets, like Martha Cunnockert. Her story sounds 00:16:02.799 --> 00:16:04.940 like a Hollywood thriller. She was a Belgian 00:16:04.940 --> 00:16:07.340 nurse who treated soldiers, but she was secretly 00:16:07.340 --> 00:16:09.580 recruited by British intelligence to be a spy. 00:16:10.299 --> 00:16:13.399 For a time, she operated as a double agent. And 00:16:13.399 --> 00:16:16.129 in a truly incredible twist of fate. She was 00:16:16.129 --> 00:16:18.529 actually awarded the Iron Cross by the Germans 00:16:18.529 --> 00:16:21.029 for her dedicated medical service to their troops, 00:16:21.129 --> 00:16:23.389 all while she was secretly feeding strategic 00:16:23.389 --> 00:16:25.590 information back to the British. Stop and just 00:16:25.590 --> 00:16:28.570 imagine the sheer unbelievable awkwardness of 00:16:28.570 --> 00:16:32.110 that moment. The absolute imposter syndrome of 00:16:32.110 --> 00:16:35.070 standing there at an enemy award ceremony, smiling 00:16:35.070 --> 00:16:37.490 politely, pinning an iron cross to your uniform, 00:16:37.909 --> 00:16:40.450 knowing full well you're actively orchestrating 00:16:40.450 --> 00:16:42.899 the downfall of the men clapping for you. It's 00:16:42.899 --> 00:16:45.340 just wild. The nerves of steel required for that 00:16:45.340 --> 00:16:48.019 are just off the charts. And speaking of crucial 00:16:48.019 --> 00:16:50.639 communications and nerves of steel, we cannot 00:16:50.639 --> 00:16:53.860 forget the Hello Girls. Ah, the Hello Girls, 00:16:54.299 --> 00:16:56.980 a vital yet historically marginalized group that 00:16:56.980 --> 00:16:59.120 revolutionized military communications. They 00:16:59.120 --> 00:17:01.700 were the U .S. Army Signal Corps Female Telephone 00:17:01.700 --> 00:17:04.279 Operators Unit. From what I read, General John 00:17:04.279 --> 00:17:06.740 J. Pershing specifically called for them in 1917 00:17:06.740 --> 00:17:08.819 because communications on the Western Front were 00:17:08.819 --> 00:17:11.339 a complete disaster. It was chaos. Total chaos. 00:17:11.619 --> 00:17:14.599 They needed operators who were fast, precise, 00:17:15.059 --> 00:17:17.240 and completely bilingual in English and French 00:17:17.240 --> 00:17:19.759 so that split -second artillery orders wouldn't 00:17:19.759 --> 00:17:23.269 be misunderstood. Out of 7 ,000 women who applied 00:17:23.269 --> 00:17:26.049 for this incredibly high -pressure job, only 00:17:26.049 --> 00:17:29.690 450 were accepted. They wore U .S. Army uniforms. 00:17:30.190 --> 00:17:32.069 They were subject to strict Army regulations. 00:17:32.549 --> 00:17:34.759 They were stationed in war zones. If we connect 00:17:34.759 --> 00:17:37.039 this to the bigger picture, the story of the 00:17:37.039 --> 00:17:39.599 Hello Girls perfectly encapsulates the post -war 00:17:39.599 --> 00:17:42.059 betrayal experienced by so many of these women. 00:17:42.619 --> 00:17:44.940 Despite wearing those uniforms, despite following 00:17:44.940 --> 00:17:47.099 those military regulations and serving under 00:17:47.099 --> 00:17:49.880 fire, the U .S. government officially classified 00:17:49.880 --> 00:17:53.559 them as civilians. Civilians. Unbelievable. Because 00:17:53.559 --> 00:17:56.119 Army regulations technically specified the male 00:17:56.119 --> 00:17:58.500 gender for soldiers, these women were denied 00:17:58.500 --> 00:18:00.660 honorable discharges and veteran status when 00:18:00.660 --> 00:18:03.960 they returned home. It wasn't until 1978, 60 00:18:03.960 --> 00:18:06.319 years after the war ended, that Congress finally 00:18:06.319 --> 00:18:08.839 approved veteran status for the remaining Hello 00:18:08.839 --> 00:18:12.039 Girls. 60 years. They had to fight their own 00:18:12.039 --> 00:18:14.220 government for six decades just to be recognized 00:18:14.220 --> 00:18:17.079 for the uniform they wore in a combat zone. And 00:18:17.079 --> 00:18:19.019 unfortunately, that pushback wasn't an isolated 00:18:19.019 --> 00:18:21.319 incident. Once the armistice was signed and the 00:18:21.319 --> 00:18:24.339 war officially ended, women across the globe. 00:18:24.559 --> 00:18:27.119 in the munitions factories and the civil service, 00:18:27.200 --> 00:18:29.700 in the military, were largely pushed right back 00:18:29.700 --> 00:18:32.259 out of the workforce. The men returned from the 00:18:32.259 --> 00:18:34.779 front, and the societal expectation was that 00:18:34.779 --> 00:18:37.279 women would just quietly fold away their overalls 00:18:37.279 --> 00:18:39.720 and go back to the domestic sphere. The labor 00:18:39.720 --> 00:18:42.680 statistics confirm exactly that. Female employment 00:18:42.680 --> 00:18:45.160 dropped right back down to pre -war levels almost 00:18:45.160 --> 00:18:47.619 immediately. The doors that had been blown open 00:18:47.619 --> 00:18:50.299 by wartime necessity were firmly shut again, 00:18:50.559 --> 00:18:52.579 and they really wouldn't open on that industrial 00:18:52.579 --> 00:18:55.519 scale again until 1939, with the outbreak of 00:18:55.519 --> 00:18:57.779 the Second World War. So what does this all mean? 00:18:57.900 --> 00:19:00.099 We started this deep dive looking to shatter 00:19:00.099 --> 00:19:02.079 the illusion that World War One was just men 00:19:02.079 --> 00:19:04.900 in muddy trenches. And looking at all these sources, 00:19:05.019 --> 00:19:07.619 it is abundantly clear that this war was a global 00:19:07.619 --> 00:19:10.519 crucible. It really was. It forced societies 00:19:10.519 --> 00:19:13.680 out of sheer desperate survival to temporarily 00:19:13.680 --> 00:19:16.700 abandon their rigid gender norms. And even though 00:19:16.700 --> 00:19:19.319 there was a massive cultural backlash after the 00:19:19.319 --> 00:19:23.450 war, you can't unring that bell. It forever changed 00:19:23.450 --> 00:19:26.109 the trajectory of women in medicine, in heavy 00:19:26.109 --> 00:19:28.609 industry, in journalism, and in the military. 00:19:28.779 --> 00:19:31.519 That is the crucial takeaway. For you listening, 00:19:31.680 --> 00:19:33.720 I want you to consider how many of the rights, 00:19:33.920 --> 00:19:36.279 the workplace norms and the societal roles that 00:19:36.279 --> 00:19:39.079 you see and experience today were quite literally 00:19:39.079 --> 00:19:41.500 forged in the fires of these incredibly harsh, 00:19:41.759 --> 00:19:44.160 toxic and dangerous environments. Absolutely. 00:19:44.299 --> 00:19:46.460 Think about the sheer grit it required for an 00:19:46.460 --> 00:19:49.200 entire generation of women to step into the massive 00:19:49.200 --> 00:19:51.920 void left by millions of conscripted men. They 00:19:51.920 --> 00:19:54.380 weren't just filling in temporarily, they were 00:19:54.380 --> 00:19:56.480 innovating trauma care, fighting on the front 00:19:56.480 --> 00:19:58.769 lines and sacrificing their health and plants. 00:19:58.950 --> 00:20:01.529 From the canaries turning yellow in the TNT factories 00:20:01.529 --> 00:20:04.490 to the nurses battling the invisible 1918 flu 00:20:04.490 --> 00:20:08.230 to the spies wearing the Iron Cross. It's an 00:20:08.230 --> 00:20:11.029 incredible legacy and this raises an important 00:20:11.029 --> 00:20:12.490 question which is the thought I want to leave 00:20:12.490 --> 00:20:16.500 you with today. If this devastating global conflict 00:20:16.500 --> 00:20:19.380 hadn't forced societies to rely on women for 00:20:19.380 --> 00:20:21.859 their very survival, if the governments hadn't 00:20:21.859 --> 00:20:24.200 been backed into an existential corner where 00:20:24.200 --> 00:20:26.319 they desperately needed women in the factories 00:20:26.319 --> 00:20:28.900 and on the front lines, how many decades longer 00:20:28.900 --> 00:20:30.920 would it have taken for the global suffrage movement 00:20:30.920 --> 00:20:34.579 to succeed? Did the unimaginable tragedy of World 00:20:34.579 --> 00:20:37.059 War I inadvertently act as the greatest catalyst 00:20:37.059 --> 00:20:39.640 for women's liberation in modern history? That 00:20:39.640 --> 00:20:42.240 is a profound question to chew on. Thank you 00:20:42.240 --> 00:20:43.960 so much for joining us on this deep dive. We 00:20:43.960 --> 00:20:44.839 will catch you next time.