Question: Whatever happened to the women?

THaT is a good question, and it is interesting that no historian has ever addressed it, as far as I know.

It has been addressed, but mostly by social historians and women's/gender history. Basically, the massive gender imabalance is credited (to varying degrees) with having contributed to educational and employment opportunities for women, discrediting and undermining traditional family structures and gender roles (not only did many women lose husbands, many husbands came back crippled or psychologically damaged and needed their wives to provide for them), giving rise in the process to a broad-based women's movement (as more women found themselves facing inequalities and disadvantages alone and in their roles as family providers), and fuelling a strong masculinist backlash.

Duby/Perrot 'History of Women in the West' is a good starting point (IIRC it's in volume 5). A bit heavy going at times - your typical Annales school grand oeuvre - and not the newest out there, but written by leaders in the field and well sourced.
 
Gender imbalance in post-WWII USSR pretty much set "mom is working, kids are in daycare" model as societal norm, as it was the only way for a lot of widows to survive. It also lead to a huge competition for a husband among females born in 1910-1930, with younger ones typically winning. This competition created "don't let a decent guy to pass you by" mindset, which survived to a present day in some shape (I, being a bookish nerd, hugely benefited from it in my youth; once we turned 20, lotsa girls who previously ignored me and were after "cool guys" to show off with suddenly became interested in me being "a good marriage candidate" :) ).
 
Gender imbalance in post-WWII USSR pretty much set "mom is working, kids are in daycare" model as societal norm, as it was the only way for a lot of widows to survive. It also lead to a huge competition for a husband among females born in 1910-1930, with younger ones typically winning. This competition created "don't let a decent guy to pass you by" mindset, which survived to a present day in some shape (I, being a bookish nerd, hugely benefited from it in my youth; once we turned 20, lotsa girls who previously ignored me and were after "cool guys" to show off with suddenly became interested in me being "a good marriage candidate" :) ).

In Soviet Russia woman fancies YOU!
 
In Soviet Russia woman fancies YOU!
More or less :)

I should add that it was mostly an atavism in my generation (slight imbalance did exist, due to higher male mortality in childhood from different "games of chicken" and the fact that some males were either wasted or well on their way to being wasted with vodka by the time they hit 20), but it was pretty deep social cliche at this point. Girls were more concerned about being married than boys about finding a GF. However, it wasn't all bliss for males, believe me. Couple of my buds were more or less "lewinskyed" into marriage (as in "girl sleeps with you and then threatens to go to police which books your ass for rape, unless you marry") :)
 
At least one historian has addressed this. Google on "Singled Out: How Two Million Women Survived Without Men after The First World War" by Virginia Nicholson to find out about one modern treatment of the topic. Basic answer is that many reconciled themselves to being lonely, many made a virtue of the fact they wouldn't get married by asserting their independence, some simply became mistresses (although not as many as legend would have it), and there was some (though again not that much) situational lesbianism as a means of living in a couple.
That's quite interesting thanks!

It seems there were academic interest on the subject, but is largely a forgotten chapter in popular history. This is unfortunate since there probably aren't any women of that generation left, still capable of handling interviews anyways. It's a shame a comprehensive study wasn't done 20-30 years ago.
It is our duty to ISOT back to 1919 to help them in their grief.
I would avoid 1919 like The Plague. Influenza to be precise.
There must be some comparative evidence from similar demographic catastrophes other than those of the Western Entente.
I think WWI is an excellent example because of the relatively low civilian casualties, which often significantly reduce the sex ratio imbalance through high female casualties.
I have seen the demographic table for Russia in the late 1990ths. There were a HUGHE gap between the woman and men in the agegeneration that fought ww2.
Indeed. I read 95% of the Russian boys born in 1923 did not survive the war.
 
There were major social changes, especially in regards to sex. If women were not sexually adventurous before marriage, there was less chance of marriage. Breech of promise suits basically went away as a consequence in America. Western Europe also had a sort of "Roaring Twenties" period of their own.
 

burmafrd

Banned
CHina and its one child rule has started a major demographic shift with fewer and fewer young women (who knows how many female babies have been killed there over the last 20-30 years). It will be interesting to see how that plays out over the next 20 years.
 
Gender imbalance in post-WWII USSR pretty much set "mom is working, kids are in daycare" model as societal norm, as it was the only way for a lot of widows to survive. It also lead to a huge competition for a husband among females born in 1910-1930, with younger ones typically winning. This competition created "don't let a decent guy to pass you by" mindset, which survived to a present day in some shape (I, being a bookish nerd, hugely benefited from it in my youth; once we turned 20, lotsa girls who previously ignored me and were after "cool guys" to show off with suddenly became interested in me being "a good marriage candidate" :) ).

Excellent!

(filler)
 
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