Blog 3 1940-1969

Gender and Power:

Women in the Workplace

So far, we have seen women progress in the workforce; they have gone from having no rights at all to being relied on during the wars. This progression continues in the 1940's. The start of the 1940's began with the attack on Pearl Harbor which resulted in the United States going to war with Germany. This put an enormous amount of pressure on the government and the American people. In 1942 the war became so big, women weren't only needed in the workplaces, they were needed in the armed forces. The Women's Army Corps (WAC) and Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Services (WAVES) were established. So, not only were millions of men volunteering to serve in the armed forces or help out on the home front, millions of women were as well. This was big for women because all of a sudden women were not depending on men, the roles had turned and now it was the United States and men who were depending on women going out into the workforce.

During World War II, some 350,000 women served in the U.S. Armed Forces, both at home and abroad. They included the Women’s Air force Service Pilots, who on March 10, 2010, were awarded the prestigious Congressional Gold Medal. Meanwhile, widespread male enlistment left gaping holes in the industrial labor force. Between 1940 and 1945, the female percentage of the U.S. workforce increased from 27 percent to nearly 37 percent, and by 1945 nearly one out of every four married women worked outside the home.

WOMEN IN THE ARMED FORCES

In addition to factory work and other home front jobs, some 350,000 women joined the Armed Services, serving at home and abroad. At the urging of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and women’s groups, and impressed by the British use of women in service, General George Marshall supported the idea of introducing a women’s service branch into the Army. In May 1942, Congress instituted the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps, later upgraded to the Women’s Army Corps, which had full military status. Its members, known as WACs, worked in more than 200 non-combatant jobs stateside and in every theater of the war. By 1945, there were more than 100,000 WACs and 6,000 female officers. In the Navy, members of Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) held the same status as naval reservists and provided support stateside. The Coast Guard and Marine Corps soon followed suit, though in smaller numbers.

While women worked in a variety of positions previously closed to them, the aviation industry saw the greatest increase in female workers. More than 310,000 women worked in the U.S. aircraft industry in 1943, representing 65 percent of the industry’s total workforce (compared to just 1 percent in the pre-war years). The munitions industry also heavily recruited women workers, as represented by the U.S. government’s “Rosie the Riveter” propaganda campaign. Based in small part on a real-life munitions worker, but primarily a fictitious character, the strong, bandanna-clad Rosie became one of the most successful recruitment tools in American history, and the most iconic image of working women during World War II.

In movies, newspapers, posters, photographs, articles and even a Norman Rockwell-painted Saturday Evening Post cover, the Rosie the Riveter, campaign stressed the patriotic need for women to enter the work force—and they did, in huge numbers. Though women were crucial to the war effort, their pay continued to lag far behind their male counterparts: Female workers rarely earned more than 50 percent of male wages.

As the war continued and ended women were not at all about to stop there. More women were rising up and more were becoming successful. Before, birth control was illegal and the only people to use condoms were prostitutes so of course nobody would be spotted with a condom. But, Margaret Sanger was a women who wasn't going to let abortions be the only choice women had of not having a baby. She wanted a cost effective, safe, and contraception, that women can choose to take. Lastly after finding someone competent enough to do the research, even better, someone who was interested, and committed in this research, Envoid was FDA approved. Not only were women fighting in the war, they were changing the laws, for the better. Although there were some skeptics over this pill many, many, many women were taking it and abortion rates were decreasing rapidly. This was a tremendous victory for women.

the hard skilled labor of women was symbolized in the United States of America by the concept of Rosie the Riveter, a woman factory laborer performing what was previously considered man's work. With this expanded horizon of opportunity and confidence, and with the extended skill base that many women could now give to paid and voluntary work, women's roles in World War II were even more extensive than in the First World War. By 1945, more than 2.2 million women were working in the war industries, especially in ammunition plants. They participated in the building of ships, aircraft, vehicles and weaponry. Women also worked on farms, drove trucks, provided logistic support for soldiers and entered professional areas of work that were previously the preserve of men. In the Allied countries thousands of women enlisted as nurses serving in the front-line units. Thousands of others joined defensive militias at home and there was a great increase in the number of women serving for the military itself, particularly in the Soviet Union's Red Army.

Several hundred thousand women served in combat roles, especially in anti-aircraft units. 

The U.S. decided not to use women in combat because public opinion would not tolerate it. However 400,000 women served in uniform in non-combat roles in the U.S. armed forces; 16 were killed by enemy fire.

Many women served in the resistances of France, Italy, and Poland, and in the British SOE and American OSS which aided these.

Other women, called comfort women were forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army before and during World War II.

Approximately 2 million Jewish women in the Holocaust were killed, and the Nazis also killed other women who belonged to groups they were committing genocide against, such as women with disabilities and Rom women.

 The end of the sixties ended with the formation of the National Organization for Women. Also, the first Miss America Beauty Pageant. In my personal opinion, it gave young girls something exciting to look forward to. Unfortunately, this was not good news for all women. The National Organization for Women, a feminist group, unsuccessfully protested the pageant for Miss America. To date, it is still one of the most recognized pageants in the country. The National Organization for Women felt the pageants gave young girls a false sense of what beauty is, citing there were no women of color allowed as  finalists. They protested the pageant was plagued with sexist and racist undertones. The women's movement gained momentum and the media increasingly took it seriously. The Miss America pageant telecasted and was one of the highest rated programs of the year.