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Role Of Women In WWII

Decent Essays

Role of Women The role of women during WWII was heavily impacted by propaganda during the 1930s-1940s, some of which had motivated women to take on generally masculine duties, some of which didn’t. In the article “‘Manning the Factories’: Propaganda and Policy on the Employment of Women, 1939-1947” written by Susan L. Carruthers, talks about the decrease in women employment. Susan writes of a remobilization campaign for women called ‘Women Must Work’ which was meant to get women back into the workforce but because of the lack of exposure this campaign wasn’t effective. The fact that women were wanted back contrasted with the social norms at the time. The researchers of Mass-Observation had written about the difficulties of influencing women with propaganda were more perspective to visual representation but failed to analyze abstract ideas making it hard to mobilize the women. In March 1941, Ernest Berwin, Minister of Labor, tries to appeal to 100,000 women to come forward for war work in the next two weeks. Berwin received quite the negative feedback where many women believed it to be ill-timing and miscalculated. The WWC, Women’s Consultative Committee was organized soon after in attempt to help amend for any of the mistakes made by the Ministry of Labor, it did insufficient bolster to Berwin’s speech . In general there were many posters addressed to women, all which had the same underlying message that women could help the men win the war. The posters themselves had no

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