Women in War Essay Sample

In what specific ways did the Second World War change the lives of adult females in Canada and/or the United States? Were the alterations simply impermanent or did they seed the seeds of prostration for traditional gender functions? *

* The Second World War dramatically changed the lives of adult females in both Canada and the United States. on every degree from political. to societal. to sexual. Further. the alterations in women’s lives during this clip were non simply impermanent reactions to a current state of affairs. but instead were profound social alterations that would everlastingly change the topographic point of adult females. and work forces. in modern society.

Before the war. adult females were cast as the “homemaker” . and their chief responsibility was to bear kids and to contract their enterprises to countries refering to home life. However. when the United States joined the Allies and entered the battleground in 1941. approximately 16 million work forces were forced to resign their occupations at place and enlist in military service. So the adult females stepped frontward. *

* Encouraged by authorities propaganda like the celebrated “Rosie the Riveter” posting which advocated a woman’s loyal responsibility to go forth place and fall in the workplace. adult females joined the war attempt in unprecedented Numberss. By the terminal of World War II. 6. 5 million American adult females had entered the work force. increasing the size of the female labour force by more than 50 % . from 11. 5 million to 18 million. *

* During the war. adult females dominated about every facet of industry. They worked in callings every bit varied as tram music directors. hack drivers. concern directors. applied scientists. and railroad workers. They worked in steel Millss. where they made weaponries and operated tractors. Some were even elected as authorities functionaries. *

* Nevertheless. when work forces returned from the war. they were given their occupations back. and adult females were expected to restart their old life style. However. a big per centum of adult females became progressively frustrated with
this impression. Women had proven. when given the opportunity. they could make full the function of work forces in traditionally male occupations and perform at the same degree. *

* In this paper. I will reason that these adult females. who stepped out of the place and into the work force during World War II. were the adult females that provided the accelerator for the prostration of traditional gender functions. In add-on to adult females fall ining the civilian work force. what is frequently overlooked is the increased engagement of adult females in the armed forces. where 350. 000 adult females served in the United States Armed Forces. Though adult females were non permitted on the forepart lines. they were critical in keeping “the bureaucratic mechanisms that [ were ] necessary in entire warfare” by going typists. clerks and mail sorters. *

* Despite the fact adult females could non prosecute in armed struggle. they frequently found themselves near to the forepart lines in sectors like the Army and Navy Medical Corps. where they served as surgical helpers. among other places. One critical subdivision of the Army was the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots. which included 1. 074 female pilots employed to wing military aircraft under the way of the United States Air Force. Their attempts freed up infinite male pilots for combat and service responsibilities overseas. WASP flew over 60 million stat mis in every type of military aircraft. and in 2009 was given the Congressional Gold Medal for their enormous attempts in the war.

Back at the place forepart. adult females were non merely working in mills and executing all the other responsibilities they took over for the work forces. but they besides had to happen clip to help the work forces overseas. They did so by rationing. nutrient. gas and even apparels. They salvaged recycled goods and organized events where adult females would portion with each other the most efficient ways to minimise waste. Women besides initiated legion voluntary organisations. which prepared bundles for the military overseas.

Surely World War II deeply impacted the lives of adult females. The war allowed. and in some instances forced. 1000000s of adult females to wholly revamp the manner they thought of themselves and of their capablenesss. This was the
first clip in history when adult females were non merely allowed to take on duties outside of their place life. but they were given the chance to show themselves in ways they ne’er had before. *

* During the war. adult females felt for the first clip like they were genuinely needed and they greatly enjoyed the parts they were able to do to the war attempts. like organizing the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Philip Wrigley. proprietor of the Chicago Cubs. founded and funded this League to make full the nothingness that was left because of the going of work forces to contend in WWII. This was “a period of clip when adult females were non supposed to hold professional callings outside of the place. much less callings that involved professional athletics” but adult females defied these thoughts on all degrees. and the AAGPBL was a critical illustration of this. The conference was a monolithic success and had a loyal followers for 12 old ages.

Womans rapidly became “disgruntled with their topographic point in society and the inability to obtain employment and accomplish equality” post-war. Women’s human rights had eventually been recognized. and yet after the war they were assumed to travel right back to the responsibility of “homemaker” . *

* Women decided to take a base. They started forming boycotts and other societal motions. such as public Marches. forcing for their human rights every bit good as protection against the favoritism adult females were confronting at the clip.

One of the drive forces of the societal motions environing women’s rights are the seminal books written by many of the movement’s leaders during the wining decennaries after the war. The first of those books is Feminine Mystique. written by feminist writer Betty Friedan. who recognized that no existent alterations were coming approximately. so she decided to take a base and speak for the laden adult females populating in the wake of World War II. *

* The Feminine Mystique caused a colossal tumult every bit shortly as it was released. In the book. Friedan portions her belief “that adult females were tired of being trapped in the place as homemakers and that the full state would profit if adult females could get away that out-of-date function and presume a more productive topographic point in the national work force. ” *

* Friedan grabbed attending for her beliefs by traveling so far as to compare a women’s life at place to life in a Nazi prison cantonment. One of the most celebrated lines in Friedan’s Feminine Mystique captures what many believed was the quintessential quandary confronting women- “as she made the beds. shopped for food markets. matched slipcover stuff. ate peanut butter sandwiches with her kids. chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies. ballad beside her hubby at night- she was afraid to inquire even of herself the soundless question– ‘Is this all? ”

Friedan’s book spawned a new moving ridge of feminist books. Australian author and strong advocator of women’s rights. Germaine Greer. best articulated the cardinal subjects environing women’s independency and gender within the feminist motion. She felt “women [ had ] someway been separated from their libido and from their sexuality… like animals who are castrated in farming in order to function their master’s subterranean motivations. ” She goes on to compose. “the indispensable factor in self-fulfillment is independence…resistance to socialization. ”

Another taking book is The Second Sex written by Simone de Beauvoir. which is widely acknowledged as being the cardinal literary work that began the Second Wave of Feminism. Like Greer. de Beauvoir wrote her work in the aftermath of the incredibly unsatisfied. laden adult females seeking to make new individualities for themselves. yet happening it impossible as they were forced back into their old 1s.

As the function of adult females was being scrutinized more and more through these pieces of literature by the coevals that succeeded the adult females of World War II. the wheels began turning for more political and cultural alterations. Remarkable alterations were implemented. including “some patriarchal Torahs [ that ] were overturned while new Torahs gave adult females unprecedented legal rights” such as the Equal Rights Act of 1963 which prohibited sex-wage favoritism between work forces and adult females in the same work constitution. The twelvemonth after in 1964. president Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act with the promise of protecting adult females in the workplace. However. this didn’t work.

So. in the old ages to follow. “new organisations flourished. each with the end of conveying about feminist alteration in the United States. ” such as the National Organization for Women. cofounded in 1966 by Betty Friedan and 28 other adult females. As outlined in NOW’s 1966 Statement of Purpose. Friedan states that “the intent of NOW is to take action to convey adult females into full engagement in the mainstream of American society now. exerting all the privileges and duties thereof in genuinely equal partnership with work forces. ” Friedan goes on to reason the importance of higher instruction for adult females. the demand of more adult females in office and the value of independency.

She strongly rejected “the current premises that a adult male must transport the exclusive load of back uping himself. his married woman. and family… and that a adult female is automatically entitled to lifelong support by a adult male upon her marriage” . Membership in NOW grew quickly and more and more mass meetings and protests were born. All the difficult work paid off as they were a cardinal function in the Equal Rights Amendment being revisited and in 1972 it “had been approved by both houses of Congress and was went to be ratified by the provinces. ”

The Food and Drug Administration approved the first unwritten preventive for adult females in 1960. which allowed adult females to be in charge of their generative rights. Womans were doing serious advancement.

During the 1950’s. the images embedded in society’s head were 1s where adult females were portrayed as subservient to work forces. and their primary duty was caring for the kids. However. as women’s functions were being questioned by women’s rightists who were non associated with pre-War women’s groups. like Betty Friedan. a flicker was ignited. These adult females questioned every facet of society. including the legal system and society’s attitudes toward them. but most significantly they demanded that something be done. The demands these adult females made became the fire that fuelled farther activism in the 1960’s. which led straight to the 1970’s Women’s Movement.

The fact is that World War II brought about one perfectly important alteration in the public consciousness about the function of adult females. That is that in add-on to supplying for the household. a adult female is genuinely capable of anything. What took topographic point during World War II may hold been more “a impermanent response to a great national exigency than a cardinal alteration of position for working women” . nevertheless its permanent effects are still being felt today.

If it weren’t for World War II. there would be no “feminine mystique” . and “no postwar haste to domesticity. and the gradual. technology-driven enlargement of women’s function in the workplace would hold continued uninterrupted. ” It may hold taken the several books exemplifying the unjust worlds adult females were confronting. or the 100s of street Marches and 1000s of adult females stepping out and voicing their sentiments. but as a consequence of all their forfeits adult females eventually refused to conform to the public’s image of what their topographic point in society was. *

* It was during WWII where adult females genuinely discovered what they were capable of. The Second World War “catapulted adult females into functions that they might hold dreamed of but ne’er hoped for. ” It was in the workplace during this clip where they were dominant in a wholly male dominant work force. so “to give all that up for a life of subjugation once the work forces returned was impossible. ”

* The historical record. outlined in portion in this paper. proves that the Second World War gave rise to one of the greatest alterations in the topographic point of adult females in modern society. in the history of world. Further. by analyzing the current position of adult females in modern society. and the direct connexions to the station World War II developments. it is clear that those alterations have endured.