Women During WWII

A few roles of women prior to the World War I consisted of cooking, cleaning, and caring for the children. These were the basic fundamental jobs that women were expected of women to do,” (Campbell 1) .During this time men were the sole base of the household income, and the head

The last and biggest way woman helped Canada and the allied effort defeat Germany was through the Canadian Womans Army Corps (CWAC). The CWAC was a combat free branch in the army made for specifically the purpose of reliving men from their non-combat roles in order to get them fighting in the war and increase our man count. Some of the many jobs woman would do while enlisted in the CWAC included working at radar stations, cleaning jobs, cooking, secretarial, and even as mechanics. without the CWAC we we would have put less men into combat decreasing our man count. These brave women wanted to help there country in the fight and they did it with pride

Women in the armed forces and social welfare programs both brought advantages to non working civilians. World war 2 was the time that women were given new opportunities to help in the war. The Canadian Women Army corps was one of the women divisions, and had more than 50% of the 50000 women who had enlisted in the program were involved in this section. The women helped on foot with basic essential tasks, for instance, cooking and preparing meals as well as washing the laundry. Having the women take on these jobs gave the men more time to spend the majority of their time fighting at battle and less or the time spent having to take care of their minor needs. Eventually women started to take on more severe male jobs, they worked as mechanics and also had the task of driving around the ambulance cars and other important vehicles around the fields. Next to these women who both stayed in Canada and travelled overseas, there were also those who took part in the Canadian Women Airforce. The women in this sector had been trained for administrative and support roles, although on top of this women proceeded to work in other positions as the war continued. They were working as parachute riggers, lab assistants, and in all the mechanical and electrical areas. The wage for women increased due to their joining of the higher male jobs and aircraft business. The third area

In the past, WWII and WWI, women were very dominant; they had to take care of their children, do all the chores and also had to cook the food. During WWII, women had to take place for the men (First world war.com). The war changed the life for all Canadian women. When men went to fight, women were called upon to fill their jobs, and this included many jobs that were previously thought of unsuitable for women. Women were called up for war work from March 1941(Women during World War II). The roles of the women were positively impacted by World War II, because they had the potential to re-enter the workforce, control the farms and join the military for the first time. Taking control of the military was tough, but women had shown that they could work together and handle the situation.

In World War II, women contributed in many ways by entering the battle. Some of the jobs the women held were Army nurses, Red Cross members, factory work, etc. The United States were one of the few countries that put their women to work and was ridiculed for it. In 1948, President Truman signed the Women 's Armed Services Integration Act which authorized regular and reserve status for women in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps. These women showed true leadership by becoming leaders in battle and left a lasting legacy for all women to come.

Actively participating in military involvement and providing support from the Homefront, the status of Canadian women in society was changed forever. Throughout history, Canadian women have always had a “strict niche.” Women were “housewives, mothers, and wives” above all else. Their influence only extended to the walls of their home. However, during the war, feminine perception of women was replaced with images of “Rosie the Riveter” and “Ronnie the Bren Gun Girl.”

Canadian women started their path in the military during the first Great War where they played a small but impactful role. They continued to push boundaries and were able to achieve successes such as the creation of the Canadian’s Women’s Corps by World War II. Even with the constant criticism they faced, the female soldiers continued to fight for military equality. Canadian women achieved small successes over time which lead to needed evolution.

Despite the social discrimination women went through, when Britain went to war, automatically sending Canada to war, women stepped up on the home front as well as on the Battlegrounds, and contributed to the war effort massively. After the war it was apparent women could do more than originally thought. Plenty of women stepped up to show their abilities and help obtain feminist rights in Canada. With so many men overseas, the role of Canadian women at home changed dramatically. Thousands of women went to work in factories, and thousands more volunteered for organizations such as Red Cross,

Canadian women played important roles during World War II, both at home and in uniform, and not only gave their sons, husbands, brothers, and fathers to the war effort, but their time, energy, skills, and, for some, even their lives. The dramatically new role women assumed in the workforce forever changed gender roles in Canada. Women’s contribution to the workforce during World War Two, and their impact on both the war effort and the nation changed the roles of women both during the war and from then on. Women had a significant impact, filling jobs left empty by men who were overseas fighting for Europe’s freedom. The changes begun by these brave women continue today as women still strive for freedom and equality in a variety of roles and

Traditionally, throughout history the roles of women had remained more or less the same, taking care of the household, children and preparing food. The roles had been set in place long ago, which made it incredibly difficult for women to go beyond this simply because it was out of the ordinary. However WWII was when everything started to change. The role of Canadian women changed drastically over the span of only six years to include responsibilities that were not fixated solely on the home, and instead encompassed roles that helped the war effort directly. Some of these included, working on farms and food production, being employed in factories, and joining female army divisions.

In addition, there were over 1.1 million Canadians who served in World War 2, causing an additional economic deficit due to the lack of workers. This is reason why Canadian women were required to step in to fill the vacant positions. Four hundred thousand Canadian women entered the workforce, taking over the retail, banking, and office jobs that were normally filled by men. In a survey conducted by the Ministry of Labour , the percentage of women in industrial jobs increased from 19.75 percent to 27 percent. During those years, Canadian women made countless accomplishments which benefit to the status of Canadian women during World War Two. The salary for women in the workforce was two thirds less than the pay for men, but in July 1943, there was an outcry led by the National Council of Women and the pay was raised by 80%. Another accomplishment was that there were working mothers in need of subsidized nursery care, which is why from 1942-46, the Dominion-Provincial Wartime Agreement allowed these Canadian women to do so. The Canadian women entered the workforce to support Canada in time of war but their initiative full action has completely changed the lives of Canadian women

Many people have never considered what women were doing in WWII when their husbands left to fight. Their lives weren’t easy or normal during the war. Women had to work just as hard as men, sometimes even more so. In this essay, I will discuss the position of American women before World War II, during the war, and at the end of the war.

During the war more than six million women joined the workforce. In August of 1943 Newsweek Magazine reported: “They [women] are in the shipyards, lumber mills, steel mills, foundries. They are welders, electricians, mechanics, and even boiler makers. They operate street cars, buses, cranes, and tractors. Women engineers are working in the drafting rooms and women physicists and chemists in the great industrial laboratories.”

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).

After getting an education as well as knowing there worth in society women knew there were more than just a wife and mother. During WWII women demonstrated their power to think in a world without men as they were off fighting the war. Women began to understand that they had more to offer the world other than housekeeping and raising children. In addition, many women wanted to continue working after the war as they had held jobs with responsibilities as well as earning wages. Furthermore, women were the ones making financial decisions as well as working in positions with higher responsibilities. Many women as well as minorities were simply casted a side to make room for the returning solders. This created a silent discontent among women