Women's
Roles during World War II
Student’s Name
Course
Title
Instructor’s
Name
Date
Campbell,
D'Ann. 1984. Women at War with America:
Private Lives in a Patriotic Era. Harvard University Press.
Campbell’s book reveals
the tension that was caused by the women in America through the divergence
between their actual and idealized tasks in the society. The book surveys broad
and critical aspects that other historians had investigated in detail. It is a
comprehensive evaluation of the experiences of women during the Second World
War. Also, it gives a wide-ranging review of the working women. The book
provides a welcoming analysis of proof and the interpretation of matters that
are critical to the understanding of the women’s history in America. It
provides challenges to the prevailing wisdom, as well as the perceptions of
other scholars.
Campbell
argues that World War II did not encompass a watershed in the history of the
participation of the American women in the labor force. Neither the women nor
the society were ready for a critical change of values. The perception was that
a woman’s main roles were at home in which, she was to be a mother and a wife.
The author agrees that women made vital contributions to the war. However, they
were at war with their country too. They were eager to be part of the country’s
labor force, industrial capacity, and technology.
Honey,
Maureen. 1999. Bitter Fruit: African American Women in World War II, 1945.
University of Missouri Press.
Honey’s book indicates
that the recruitment posters, newsreels, and advertisements largely portrayed
the white women as concerned mothers, defense plant employees, dedicated wives,
and army women. Conversely, the African-American women also participated in
every aspect that involved the home-front activities during the Second World
War, however, they were not considered as important to the nation building as
the white women who took part in the war. The numerous white images left for posterity
faces, such as Rosie the Riveter doubting the African-American women’s
contributions to the war struggle.
Honey
notes that the customary literature anthologies of Blacks in America jump from
the Harlem Renaissance to the 1960s with no or little reference to the years
between such periods. The book not only sheds light on the literature of such
years, but it also presents the Black women’s image as activists in the
community that weakened the sex typecasts of the Second World War period.
Women's
Roles during World War II
Introduction
The
society of America largely considered women as mothers and homemakers before
the start of the Second World War. There were exceptions in which women could
work as waitresses, store clerks, teachers, telephone operators, secretaries,
and laundresses and a few other careers. Most of the occupations were for men
as some states went to the extent of barring females from holding jobs that
earned wages or salaries[1]. Conversely, with millions
of the males voluntarily or via conscription getting into the armed forces, the
attitude towards women’s roles quickly changed as the country was threatened
with labor shortage that almost crippled its capability to champion for
democracy. The necessity to mobilize the whole populace behind the war was
extremely compelling to the level that social and political leaders agreed that
men would have to change how they viewed women’s roles as the country was
facing national emergency.
The
entry of America into the war was approximately ten months old when the
National Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Club that is currently
known as the Business and Professional Women’s Foundation got ready to start
its fourth yearly National Women’s Week[2]. President Roosevelt
dispatched a correspondence to the president of the organization, Dr. Maffet.
The letter was designed to rally the women of America and make them committed
partakers in the war struggle. Roosevelt informed women that their efforts
could build the nation in a range of ways. He also informed them that the
increasing war struggle called for the services of all the able-bodied and
qualified individuals. Women were also made aware that they would participate
in the manufacturing programs. The president encouraged various agencies to
adopt his perception of mobilizing women to turn up for work. It was considered
as a national call. Transforming the images of the roles of women in America
was swiftly adopted by the social and political leaders. Women were required to
fill the vacant jobs that men were living as they were being recruited in the
military. Lots of different advertisements were used to persuade them to seek
for the jobs in the factories, and also to assist in the military in case of
labor shortages.
Women
in Production
Production
was critical to victory, and thus, women were significant to production. Women
had started responding to the agencies’ calls to join the labor force. Some
women even joined the army because they felt that if the members of their
families were in the battle field, then they were also in the fight.
Additionally, factories changed their ways of production as they retooled for
the production of war equipments[3]. New equipments extremely
increased the industrial output as women played an important part of the
workforce. Factories started producing nets for camouflage rather than lingerie;
field carts for carrying hospital foods rather than baby carriages; bomb fuses
rather than lipsticks; parachutes rather than the silk and ribbon goods; hand
grenades rather than beer cans; and gas masks rather than vacuum cleaners.
Women became production militias. They kept the country moving by perfectly
doing the jobs that were customarily reserved for men.
Previously,
females always experienced resistance and resentment from the foremen, and male
managers of the production plants. Resistance was specifically strong in the
custom-bound industry for building ships[4]. However, women started
winning the skeptical managers. A publication by the government towards the end
of 1942 indicated that shipyards were virtually undivided in reporting that
women performed well at the work places just like men. In fact, foremen usually
discovered that females were quicker to gain knowledge than the available males.
They also showed a better concentration than did the males, and were concerned
to know “how” and “why.”
Women
in the Military
Women
also joined the military as armed forces and nurse corps to make it easier for
additional men to be sent into war. Additionally, women leaders assisted in the
determination of the results of the war, as well as the peace that came
afterwards. Women were also encouraged to join various professions within the
military. Several women went to Washington D.C to assist manage the rapidly
increasing federal government, and also participate behind the combats in the
war struggle. Moreover,
over three hundred and fifty thousand women were recruited into the armed
services, serving abroad and at home. The women’s groups and Eleanor Roosevelt
urged women to enroll in the army after they were impressed by the Britain’s use
of women in the military. Congress set up the Auxiliary Army Corps of Women in
1942 that was upgraded to the Army Corps Army that had a full status of the
military[5].
Its members worked in over two hundred non-combatant works stateside, and in
all the corners of the war. By 1945, there were close to six thousand female
officers, as well as over a hundred thousand Women’s Auxiliary Army. In the
Navy, Women
Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) members held a similar eminence
as marine reservists and offered assistance stateside. The Coast Guard and
Marine Corps before long followed suit, albeit in smaller figures.
Women’s
Air force Service Pilots (WASP) provided one of the least recognized tasks that
women carried out in the war struggle. Such females, each of whom had already
acquired their license of being a pilot before the service, were the first to
fly the military aircraft in America[6]. They shipped planes from
the factories to the military bases, they participated in the simulation target
and strafing missions and cargo transportation, as well as amassing over sixty
million miles in air travel distances. The women also freed thousands of the
American male pilots for active duty in the Second World War. More than a
thousand members of WASPs worked in the military camps, though a considerable
number of them demised during the war. Regarded as the employees of the civil
service that lacked the formal military status, the fallen women pilots were
never granted the military benefits and honors. However, the country had to
wait until 1977 that the women pilots in the military got full status of the
armed forces. In 2010, at the Capitol ceremony, the WASPs got the Congressional
Gold Medal, one of the highest honors for the civilians. Over two hundred
former pilots were in attendance, with several of them wearing their Second
World War era uniforms.
Women’s Roles in the Community and
at their Homes
Women had numerous roles both in the
community and at their homes. In the community, females collected blood, raised
money for the battle bonds, assisted in civil defense, rolled bandages, hosted
troops, and tended Victory Gardens[7].
In their homes, they raised their children, recycled the materials that were
considered scarce, mourned their men who died in war, and also dealt with the
rationing strains.
For the majority of the American
women, the sacrifices they made during the Second World War brought to them new
opportunities, new skills, and new jobs. The secret weapon at the time was the
females who willingly assembled to meet any kind of challenge. The American industries
and government rapidly expanded to meet the needs of the war because of the
women’s labor.
Women in the Aircraft
Industry
As women continued to work in various
positions that had previously been closed to them, the industry of aviation
experienced the greatest growth because of the women workers. In 1943, over
three hundred and ten thousand females worked in the United States air craft
industry, representing sixty-five percent of the total workforce of the
industry compared to one percent in the years before the war[8]. The industry that dealt
with weapons also employed female workers, as represented by the propaganda
campaign that was carried out by Rosie the Riveter of the United States
government. Based in a tiny section on a real-life weapons worker, though
critically a fabricated character, the robust, bandana-clad Rosie turned into
one of the most triumphant tools of recruitment in the history of America, as
well as the most iconic reflection of the working females during the Second
World War.
Campbell
reviews the experiences of women by examining the histories of Spars, Waves,
Wacs, civilian war workers, and the military nurses. She narrates that women
faced hostilities within the military and union hierarchies as they tried to
get to the higher ranks despite the numerous advertisements that encouraged
them to join the labor force. They were reluctantly accepted as temporary
replacements to hold the management positions as some men still had the
perception that women were fit for the home tasks, as well as other community
services. She emphasizes that only the war nurses gained command over men and became
in charge of their profession, whereas the rest of the women employees in other
fields were being dictated upon and prejudiced against by their male superiors[9].
The wages and salaries they earned were much lower than the male workers whom
they worked with in the same occupations. Campbell’s book narrates the history
of the armed forces wives at the time of war and the stay at home mothers, as
well as the incorporation of the history of the two groups with the women
workers who were being paid. Women, particularly, mothers and wives, got into
and out of the war work force on a monthly basis to attend to their home duties
as well. Campbell writes that the war had heavy obligations on the females, but
it never marked a radical break with their sex roles, or the customary working
arrangements.
The
Second World War transformed America drastically though not usually in
straightforward and expected ways. Rosie the Riveter fighting for equality at
the places of work was an incomplete image. By 1944, over nineteen million
females had jobs in which, they were being paid[10].
However, two-thirds of women worked at their homes, and polls indicated that though
some females disliked being forced to live their places of work between 1945
and 1946, most of them had the feeling that it was not a hardship to go back
home. It is also imperative to note that the elite customary men professions
like political offices, senior businesses, medicine, and law were preserved for
the white men.
Honey
writes that the contribution of the African-American females in every aspect of
the home-front work at the time of the Second World War was evident. However, newsreels,
employment posters, and advertisements showed to a larger extent that white
women were getting jobs as workers at the defense plants, army nurses, steadfast
wives, and concerned mothers. Such a variety of white employees left for
posterity pictures like Rosie the Riveter, blurring the contributions that were
made by the African-America women to the war struggle. Honey corrects such a
distorted image of the roles of women in the Second World War by collecting
poetry, fiction, essays, and photos about and by the Black women from the four
leading wartime periodicals of the African-American. The periodicals include
The Crisis, Negro Digest, Negro Story, and Opportunity.
Lots
of the publications featuring for the first time since they got publicized in
the book, Bitter Fruit, show the
African-American women working in the armed forces uniforms, operating the
machines that look technical, pursuing education, and entertaining audiences.
The publications applaud the accomplishments made by the Black women as
pioneers working towards attaining racial equality[11].
The poetry and fiction depict women character engaged in tasks that are not
just domestic duties. Additionally, the poetry and fiction voice the concerns
of bitterness arising as a result of the racial prejudice that several females
felt. Such an anthology has works that have been written by over a hundred
writers, most of whom are African-Americans. Of specific note are short stories
and poems anthologized for the very first time such as the first story by Ann
Perry, the last fiction work by Octavia Wynbush, as well as the three poems
that were written by Georgia Douglass Johnson of the Harlem Renaissance. Uniting
such different authors was their aspiration to write in the middle of a universal
armed forces disagreement with theatrical possibility for bringing segregation
to an end, as well as opening opportunities for the females who were engaged in
domestic duties. Conventional anthologies of the literature by the Black
persons run from the Harlem Renaissance period to the 1960s with no or little
reference to the years in between. Bitter
Fruit is a book that not only sheds light on the literature of such
periods, but it also presents a picture of the racial prejudice that was
enhanced by the white community against the African-American women regarding
employments.
Though
the war opened career and job opportunities for the white females, black
females experienced just the insignificant improvements in their tasks as the
domestics of the country. They were demoted to the least desirable, dirtiest,
and most precarious works just like their Black men[12].
Bitter Fruit narrates that despite
the fact that white females looked forward to a return to their domestic roles
after the war, the future of the African-American females looked uncertain. Blacks
continued to go through racial discrimination at home despite their
participation in nation building, and defending America in the battle grounds.
The book’s collection shows the services and sacrifices that were offered by
the African-Americans in the middle of a sustained prejudice.
There
is no existence of any documented article that shows that the black females
offered their services to the military in the American Revolution[13].
However, it is assumed that they might have offered their services alongside
the African-American males. It is also assumed that the services that the Black
females offered during the war included domestic duties in the home settings,
laundering, nursing the wounded soldiers, and cooking for the men in combat. Such
duties paid less as compared to what the white women were earning as they
worked in factories, as well as in the military. The Black females obtained
jobs in the military and the factories because of their enlisted Black men, but
not because of the government’s advertisements. Additionally, Black women were
paid by the white farmers to do manual jobs in their plantations.
Conclusion
To conclude, the entry of America
into the Second World War changed the perception of the social and political
leaders regarding the roles of women in the society. The American industries
were threatened by the shortage of labor as many men were recruited into the
military, and thus, there was the need to employ women to replace the vacancies
that were left by the men. Despite the racial prejudice allegations against the
Black women, both the white and the black females played essential roles during
the Second World War as they worked in the factories, and also in the military.
Works
Cited
Campbell,
D'Ann. 1984. Women at War with America:
Private Lives in a Patriotic Era. Harvard University Press.
Holt,
Jennifer. The Ideal Woman. Retrieved
from https://www.csustan.edu/sites/default/files/honors/documents/journals/soundings/Holt.pdf
Honey,
Maureen. 1999. Bitter Fruit: African American Women in World War II, 1945.
University of Missouri Press.
McEuen, Melissa A. 2016. Women,
Gender, and World War II. American
History Journal. DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.55
[1] McEuen, Melissa A. Women, Gender, and World War II. American History Journal, 2016. DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.55
[3] Holt, Jennifer. The Ideal Woman. Retrieved from https://www.csustan.edu/sites/default/files/honors/documents/journals/soundings/Holt.pdf
[4] Holt, Jennifer.
[5] Holt, Jennifer.
[6] McEuen, Melissa A.
[9] Campbell, D'Ann. Women
at War with America: Private Lives in a Patriotic Era. (Harvard University
Press, 1984), 17
[11] Honey, Maureen. Bitter Fruit: African American
Women in World War II, 1945. (University of Missouri Press, 1999), 23.
[13] McEuen, Melissa A.
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