'Out of the Cage' brings vividly to life the experiences of working women from all social groups in the two World Wars. Telling a fascinating story, the authors emphasise what the women themselves have had to say, in diaries, memoirs, letters and recorded interviews about the call up and their personal reactions to war.

Commentators writing soon after the outbreak of the First World War about the classic problems of women s employment (low pay, lack of career structure, exclusion from "men s jobs") frequently went on to say that the war had "changed all this," and that women s position would never be the same again.

This book looks at how and why women were employed, and in what ways society s attitudes towards women workers did or did not change during the war. Contrary to the mythology of the war, which portrayed women as popular workers, rewarded with the vote for their splendid work, the author...