World War I : American Women Essay

Women had a huge role in the World War II that so many do not recognize. Women were involved in many different jobs that allowed them to step out of the ordinary norm as the “typical housewife”, and dive into fierce hardworking jobs that until then only a man could do. Women jumped into the factories and many different roles that contributed to World War II, because the need for more American workers was crucial.

J.G. Sime’s short story “Munitions” utilizes a limited omniscient narrative, metaphors, and imagery to demonstrate how World War I contributed to the liberation of North American women from patriarchal gender roles such as housewifery, and the unity among these newly emancipated women. The limited omniscient narrative allows readers to understand the limited opportunities for women before the war, while maintaining hope for a more eclectic future. The narrative also reveals the changing sexual codes for women as a result of independence, the internalized misogyny that forced patriarchal gender roles creates, and how when these roles are eradicated, women become supportive of one another. Sime employs the season of spring and Bertha’s name as metaphors of new beginnings for women. The bright imagery also reveals optimistic future opportunities for women, while contrasting, dark images expose the restricted lives of women before the war.

Many people question if women went into the war because of patriotism or because they lacked other opportunities. Women responded to the call differently depending on age, race, class, marital status, and number of children. They switch from lower-paying female jobs to higher-paying factory jobs. While patriotism influenced women,

During the Second World War, both married and unmarried women worked in wartime industries and factories to take the place of men who joined the service. Although women didn’t play a significant role on the battlefields in Europe compared to males, it would be logical to conclude that women played an integral role in the participation and victory in WWII both at home and abroad. Yet when one considers their contribution, it is hard to imagine how much more they could have done given the conservative views of gender role at that time. In the context of traditional gender roles and boundaries, women conceivably maximized their wartime efforts by working in a variety of jobs including industry, volunteering, and serving as support staff for

In the years after the Second World War, people created uncountable numbers of historiographical research on various topics related to the war, such as military tactics in battles, individual groups of men during their time in service, and other such subjects. Not much surprise exists then, that women’s actions in World War II eventually would also gain interest and publication for the public, though it did not gain an undivided focus until the advent of women’s and social history grew momentum. Women, despite being half of the world’s population, doubtlessly had acted during the war years, although limited by social gender expectations of the period. As time passes from 1945, more interest in the lives of women and their effect on the war

American Women in WW1 Even before the United States entered World War 1, American women mobilized to support those affected by the violence. As the war progressed, the United States decision to enter the war prompted many men to enlist for their country. These men left their homes and jobs vacant, allowing women to fill responsibilities never left to them before. Women mobilized on the war front in new ways as well.

Despite lasting from only 1914 to 1918, World War I was a period of change throughout the United States. It brought new advances in warfare and technology, but mainly women’s statuses, specifically social, political and economic. Being fought during a time of the federal suffrage movement, women were constantly strengthening their voices to eventually gain the vote within a few years of the war’s end. With male servicemen out of the war, women were substituted in their places and learned skills of independence. Strictly speaking, World War I greatly impacted the fate and society of American women, shaping it into the statuses that they are in today.

From the beginning of World War I to World War II women’s roles have evolved over time. Women played many important roles in both wars, but in WWII women’s roles took a giant leap and women were able to show their worth. Throughout WWII, opportunities for women increased. Women were now able to take part in the war and were also given leadership roles.

officials used propaganda to engage women to work on factories while their husbands were sent to fight on the other side of the continent. While some women stayed to work on the factories, other women went to participate on the war as nurses. For example, Walker states that nurses working at the war “lead armies headragged generals across minded fields.” In other words, nurses guide generals to their safety when they got injured at the battle field. Walker’s uses diction to describe the injured generals as ‘headragged’ illustrates that women are capable to do anything and is indeed important.

In this book, Brown pointed about women did during the World War I back in America’s homeland. She explains what they did on the homeland while military women and men were at war. The Chapters explains the factory workers struggles and working in the war industries. Brown describes women beginning to expand their skills. This source is helpful to know that there were women took part of war even if they weren’t near the battlefields.

Women had helped out so much during the war for the men. A war that had lasted for four years consecutively yet women never gave up. They played many important parts and roles in order to help men and prove to them. Women have strongly supported the men of our country and shown that women too can as well do what men can do. Without their efforts and participation in the war it seems as if both sides would’ve have struggled immensely.

This novel allows us to change our perspective, seeing women in a new light, knowing not only were women solely supplying those who were in the war with clothes, money, food, and medical supplies or simply just awaiting upon their husbands, brothers and or sons return from fighting the war as we had originally presumed were the only roles women had done during the Civil War. Some were so passionate that they put their lives at risk and dressed up as men to fight for their cause, whether it had been for the Confederacy or for the union. Others were spies, gathering information about enemy plans, details about the size of their troops or barricades they might have had. Multiple women used their beauty to their advantage, knowing that men were less intimidated by them and could easily trust them and let their guard down. No one believed women were capable of acts such as these and didn’t expect them to play such a dangerous role in the Civil war they had so often gone undetected in the early stages of the war.

Jensen, Kimberly. Mobilizing Minerva: American Women in the First World War. Urbana: U of Illinois, 2008.

The socially constructed idea of gender and its role is affected by direct and indirect external factors. Since the beginning of time in European Society, women have constantly been viewed and treated as inferiors to men. Specifically, women have wanted to stray away from the socially constructed idea of being perceived as domesticated beings. As the Victorian era came to the end, women yearned for that change. When the twentieth century approached, women actively desired to alter the gender role that had been set for them by men and were pursing suffrage. A decade into the twentieth century, war erupted within Europe, later to be known as World War I. During that time period, some changes were practiced concerning women’s intimate physical role, position in the labor force, and direct participation in war combat, nevertheless they were always seen useless.

It is clear that the 1920s were years of social change and freedom of expression, mainly for women who had for so long endured the oppressive social injustice of not legally being able to vote or even make their own legal or financial decisions in their marriages. However, while the causations for this may be numerous, and social change was already an imperative on the horizon for Britain and the rest of the world, the ways in which women actively volunteered to participate in helping out their country, despite the gruesome and often times extremely dangerous conditions of the Western front, was indicative of the powerful force of women’s desire in the early twentieth century to prove that they were equally as brave, competent, and independent as the male war heros of the past. World War I was a call to action that women couldn’t ignore: they stepped up to serve their country on the battlefield and at home, where there was need, in places (such as driving ambulances) that proved that women were in every way equal to the abilities of men, and there would be nothing that could stand in their way to achieving equality in the upcoming decade.