Busy and Bored: The Politics of Work and Leisure for Women Workers in Second World War British Government Hostels

This article explores the provision of government hostel accommodation for thousands of single civilian women conscripted for war work after March 1941. As part of the infrastructure of war, the hostels were built to counter problems of transportation to and from remotely situated armament and tank factories. As a result, the hostels were hastily built close to the factories to decrease the amount of time spent on public transportation and to give the conscripted women as much leisure time as possible outside of work. The hostels were austere and lacked organized leisure activities. In addition, men, even those related to the women, were barred from entering the establishments. The women left the hostels in droves. Efforts to entreat the women to stay at the remotely located hostels failed. A new Director of Hostels introduced substantial changes yet at no time during the war were the hostels ever filled to capacity. In many ways, the hostels were a failed project. This article argues that leaving the hostels was one way conscripted women could resist the incursion of the state into their private lives and openly critique government policies perceived as thoughtless and unnecessary. Returning to live at home also contradicted official wartime perceptions of undisciplined female sexuality. The resistance of female war workers to the government hostels, then, challenges the duelling stereotypes of working women as simultaneously compliant and sexually unruly that permeated the contemporary and the historical literature.