World War II as a Time of Opportunities for American Women Essay

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.

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"

Due to both husband and wives working and people were able to purchase more goods for their home the economy began to rise after World War. The post-war reconstruction effort made the need for an expanded labour force urgent. In the late 1940s, the government launched campaigns to encourage women to enter or stay in the labour market, and encouraged the migration of workers from (former) British colonies to fill the labour shortages.The welfare state created many job opportunities in what was seen as ‘women’s work’. Jobs were available in the the newly created National Health Service for nurses, midwives, cleaners and clerical staff. Banking, textile and light industries such as electronics also expanded during this period and provided women with opportunities in clerical, secretarial and assembly work. Jobs were still strictly segregated by gender and routine repetitive work was categorised as women’s work for women’s lower wages (Striking,

By the late 19th century and early 20th century women were more involved in the workforce. They were doing domestic service, working in factories, workshops, tin and coal mines, farms, etc. Many of the jobs that women were doing required a lot of physical labor, and even though they still wanted or needed to have these jobs they weren’t compensated with a proportional wage. What they received was looked as a second earning for the household and the men of the house whom had far more “skillful” jobs required a higher pay. Truth is, women were the ones doing the difficult jobs and working more than the men were but that was of no importance but to women themselves.

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.

Many women worked in the cleaner jobs but many worked in the dirty jobs. Some women took the men's jobs at the house. They did the hard work, they milked the cows and they even plowed while the men were at war,(Colman). They worked like the men do. World War II:1939-1945 Striking Women says “Women were actively deployed in civil defence schemes as overnight fire watchers in factories, ambulances drivers, air raid wardens, members of first aid parties and messengers.”

It was rare To see females in the workplace, especially married ones. A lot of the companies lived By the rule, “simply fire the women, who shouldn’t be working anyway, and hire the men. ”The men could pretty much work everywhere, while women could not work

Did you know that a lot of women during the great depression and the second world war worked in factories making supplies such as planes, boats, tanks, and jeeps? JOBS DURING THE GREAT DEPRESSION Jobs during the depression were very scarce. Many times people were basically forced to get a job to survive. One job of the time that was popular was factory jobs.

Women who did find work faced “prejudice that was even worse during the Great Depression, but most jobs they got were ‘women’s jobs’ ” (Nishi 32). Examples for “women’s jobs” were positions in domestic service, in social work, in clerical jobs, and in primary education. But even in those jobs, women were paid less and the first to go, like it is shown in the education sector, where “school districts hired more female teachers during the Great Depression, but female teachers made less than male teachers” (Graves 13). This gap in pay remained a problem throughout the Great Depression and made it especially tough for women to make a living out of the meager wage. This wage gap was also present in government jobs, as “female WPA workers received only $3 a day, whereas men were paid $5, and this discrepancy in pay was imposed by NRA codes” (Nishi 32). Married working women were “especially frowned upon, since supposedly their husbands were supporting them” (Nishi

Women during the 1940s war era were willing to take risks. They had a desire to achieve to better themselves socially and professionally. Women had been in the workforce prior to WWII, many had worked for years and were either single, divorced, or married and in need of additional income to maintain their family. Not all women in the 1940s were stay at home house wives; many were teachers, nurses, textile workers, and clerical workers. American society was accustomed to women working that was not new or unusual, however, once America entered the war and women from all regions of America joined the labor force society took a jolt. No longer where the women on demand for the man of the house or in their lives, they had jobs, some would even say they had careers. Innovations and

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).

Working women in the early part of the twentieth century faced many obstacles, one such obstacle was discrimination. In the work force men always received the better positions and always made higher wages. Women were given unskilled labor and were paid half of what men

World War II is a pivotal point for women’s history because it allowed for women to become more involved in the workforce. Women were introduced to the workfield in vast numbers during WWII and became a vital source for American economy. Women were nurses, midwives, and worked more in male dominated fields. The “Rosie the Riveter” poster inspired women to go help out for WWII efforts and inspired women to do less housekeeping tasks, allowing them to spend more time outside the household. Women took many jobs and were paid for their tasks, but not as much as their male counterparts in the field. Therefore, the problem of wage disparity based on gender grew significantly. Before the Equal Pay Act of 1963, women were paid lower wages than males

Paid work for women moved from principally customary female-situated employments to all the more non-conventional and already male-arranged vocations. Ladies ' support in the workforce prompted them to start careers in the field dominated by male in the 20th century. Career yearnings were affected by elements, such as sexual orientation, financial status, race, occupation and instruction level, and parental desires. This paper exhibits how women developed, changed and the challenges they faced in the 20th century in America in the workforce and the advancement of ladies ' careers, improvement and profession goals during the 20th century in United States. Also, gender issues affecting women will be discussed in details during this period and how women played their role in fighting for their rights.

Gender roles of women and men in the 1930s was traditional. The Men provided and women were wives and mothers. During World War II, a plethora of women worked jobs with the intent off returning back to their domestic roles after the war. Most were jobs that men typically worked in. Some women obeyed, while millions were forced, or persuaded, to leave (Jannson, 2015). However, the cat was out of the bag. These women got to experience a dash of freedom and wanted more. Women who had to work outside the home during the 1930s before war, were often able to secure jobs in “feminine