Women After World War II

Prior to World War II, many women were unemployed, due to the Great Depression which had started a decade before. With men always getting preference for jobs, there were very few jobs left for women. Consequently, not only were many occupations were reserved for men, but men were also paid wages up to five times higher for the same task as women. Some states also barred married women from holding jobs. However during World War II, America produced at an efficiency which was higher than ever. This meant that the women had an increasing number of jobs. Jobs in the public sector opened up. Since 1939, women progressively changed the idea of patriarchy and the cliché thinking of an average woman in the United States to be a wife and mother.

Women only worked in their homes caring for their family’s, they never had the opportunity to work outside of their homes in places such as factories or in the government and they had no benefits within the house until the war began. The war

Prior to World War II women were seen as house wives, taking care of children and tending the gardens. Women generally accepted these roles because family was a prior economic unit. Even during World War I the contributions were housewife like, washing clothing, cooking, helping the wounded, sewing, knitting clothing, and etc. The images of women taking care of the home while men were off working were so nailed into the head that some states banned women from jobs. Once the war started to take place the war effort was so great men and women had to set aside gender roles for the sake of their countries being. Women left families, education, and other jobs to work the jobs men took on while they were off serving the country in combat, etc.

The changing roles of women throughout history has been drastic, and none more so than the period during and after World War II. The irrevocable changes that occurred once the war started and women went to work were unprecedented.

During the 1940's wartime production required more factory workers. With the majority of males being enlisted into the military and the work force depleted, minorities and women found many opportunities during the war. "For most, involvement became an adventure, a way that every citizen could feel he or she was making an important contribution to the war effort"(Duis, 20). While most women were married, they worked to keep themselves busy while the males were off at war. "Prior to the war only about one fourth of women worked outside of the home" (Bard, 173). "By 1945, women made up 36% of the nation's total workforce" (Schultz). After the war, women were advised to leave work and continue their more traditional role of wife and mother. African Americans improved their economical standing by accepting war industry positions and through their migration from the south; some became professionals and skilled workers, yet still facing harsh discrimination. There was a high commitment of immigrant workers to the war effort that participated heavily in war bond and scrap metal collection drives. Like African Americans, these immigrants were also subjected to racial prejudice. But overall, "America enjoyed full employment and a higher standard of living"

Women's participation during World War II has had significant results throughout history. It has lead to economic advancement for them specifically after the post war Baby Boom period. The research is filling practical information about the advanced affects woman had on their family income during this time. To get my results I analyzed ten sources and read through each one and found important quotes and details in each. As a result of this I learned that after World War II this was the beginning where woman had a large impact on the economics in their households. One major causes of the U.S. postwar baby boom was the increased demand for female labor during World War II. The effect of the war on female employment was not only large, but also

The U.S industry, as well as the government expanded during wartime needs. Women made all of this possible (Partners in Winning the War). Women were needed to fill in the traditional male jobs during the war. These jobs provided unprecedented opportunities for women to move into occupations, previously thought of as exclusively for men. However, with these new opportunities, American women began to change the stereotypes of gender roles. They took over the majority of factory and office jobs, previously occupied by men. Five million women entered the workplace during 1940-1945, the gap in the labor force created by departing soldiers. It is seen that a huge percentage of American women have begun to take over these positions, slowly changing the industrial world in the United States (Khan Academy).

“Temporarily at least, the war caused a greater change in women's economic status and outlook than a prior half century of reform and rhetoric had been able to achieve.” ”The Federal government encouraged housewives to join the workforce as a patriotic duty.” Once they needed the women to work for America,it was promoted through various forms of propaganda that taking on the male's role was the best thing to do. “Immediately after the war, the percentage of women who worked fell as factories converted to peacetime production and refused to rehire women.” It was expected that the women were going to keep their jobs, even when their men had come home, but instead the women were fired in order for men to be hired.

Throughout World War II, the role of women in the United States was rapidly changing. While men were away fighting overseas, the women were left to fill jobs and support America's war efforts. Women were encouraged to take on these new roles through advertisements for the war efforts. They were told that it was their duty to work, and they were really enjoying the feeling of independence and importance. However, once the war was over and the men began coming home, they were left in need of jobs, and this newfound sense of freedom for women would soon be stripped away from them.

Before the war women had to fit into a stereotype of “the perfect family” (“A Change in”). Prior to 1941 only 30% of women worked for 10 years and only 50% worked for 5 years (Discovery Education). Women were encouraged not to work, because it broke “the perfect family” stereotype (“The Women of”) (“A Change in”). Even husbands did not want their

Undeniably, the outlook of women in the workforce changed following the advent of World War II. Traditionally, the role of caretaker of the house and home was assigned to the woman. Society and institutions facilitated, accepted and supported this way of thinking and way of life. Working outside the home was considered "a man's job". A woman expressing an interest in being anything other than a homemaker and wife was frowned upon. Accepted was the notion that men are better laborers and a woman could not perform at the same level as a man and therefore are undesirable candidates for work in the office or in factories. When America entered in the Second World War, the role of women as primarily stewards of the home was forever changed. As men answered the call of duty, they left behind a void not only in the hearts of their loved ones but also in the workplace. During this time not only were vacancies found in the work that once employees turned soldiers left behind but also we witnessed an increase of labor need for specific industries, such as those that supported the wartime efforts. Women entered the workforce in droves, filling the much needed void in the offices and the factories. Women become the soldiers on the home front and once the war was over, there was no erasing the progress women made in proving capable and ready to hold gainful employment outside the home. This paper addresses women in the workforce,

Another impact WWII had on women, was that job opportunities for women increased during the war and they had a chance to prove they could work. “Women also enjoyed employment gains during the war, although many lost their jobs when the war ended.” (Danzer, 591) Women started to work at jobs, that weren’t technically jobs that women worked at the time, which allowed women to prove themselves to employers but employers still discriminated against women. After white, male soldiers came home from the war, many employers fired women and hired veterans and women were expected to go back to being

As more men entered the armed forces, women needed to replace them. By the war's end, hundreds of thousands of women had entered the workforce, many of them in traditionally masculine occupations such as engineering, munitions, transport, business, and eventually even the military. The war produced a leap in women's employment from twenty-six percent in the workforce in 1914 to thirty-six percent by 1918. One million women worked in munition industries, forty-thousand served as nurses, and twenty-thousand joined the Women's Land Army as agricultural workers (Marwick, 1977). For the young and the middle-class, work outside their homes was indeed a new experience. On the other hand, working-class women were used to paid work, but the type of work was new. Many left low-skill, low-wage jobs, especially in domestic service, for better paying skilled labor in factories and workshops (Kent, 1993).

During the war in the 1940s, an aggressive media campaign urged more than six million women into the workforce. It is astonishing seeing each year; there were better accomplishments that women were making. Many learned new techniques such as working in steel plants, shipyards, and lumber mills. Sports also became a new and admired era in this time. The famous “Rosie the Riveter”, “We Can Do It!” was a part of the governor campaign that brought women into the workplace during the war. Following the end of WWII, most of these jobs went back to the men, and women were encouraged to either return back home or find a “female” job. This reveals that women were used. They were only needed when most of the men were in the war. In

Throughout the twentieth century, both World War I and World War II significantly impacted American society in several ways. From 1917 to 1918, the United States’ involvement in World War I began an increase in the number of women in the workplace that would steadily continue throughout much of the twentieth century. The United States once again played a major role in World War II from 1941 to 1945, and this war is actually seen as a turning point for women in the workplace. During the two world wars, women workers were impacted by discrimination, the danger of the work they completed, and the portrayal of women in propaganda during both world wars, and yet the different time periods of the two world wars led to differences in how women