During and after the First World War, contemporaries perceived that the massive mobilization of 7.9 million young and middle-aged Frenchmen produced enormous disruption and change in the lives of millions of women. Feminist Jane Misme reported in 1916 that “the upheaval … of civilization was producing the social equality of women with men on a vast terrain,” even though the “campaigns of feminist societies have been almost totally suspended.” Jurist Henri Robert concluded that “the war has been the '89 of women.” Such judgments stemmed from observations of women not only coping alone at home while husbands did combat but also assuming new work roles in factories, fields, and offices. Historians have disagreed about the longterm significance of wartime changes for women's lives, but clearly the overwhelming need to replace men called to battle gave many women access, albeit often temporary, to jobs formerly reserved to men. Already 37 to 38 percent of the labor force in 1906 and 1911, women comprised perhaps 46 percent of all workers by 1918. Young single women and, to a lesser extent, married women often worked before the war, and during the war many other married women and widows returned to work or entered the work force for the first time.