Introduction
“After Japan bombed
Pearl Harbor the young men of America poured out of the factories and offices to
line up at the recruiting offices. The young women of America lined up at the
factories and arsenals to fill the traditional male jobs left vacant by those
who went off to fight.”
The wartime’s
manufacturing production demands during World War II dramatically changed the
role of women in American society. They quickly moved from a basic homemaking
role to take on the kinds of factory jobs previously held almost exclusively by
men. This initiated a fundamental shift in the society’s attitude toward women
working outside of the home, a shift that continues to this day.
Before the war began,
there was no “Rosie the Riveter”; the vast majority of women were either
housewives or employed in “typical” female jobs, such as teachers, nurses,
policewomen, waitresses and cashiers. While there were some
exceptions, they were uncommon; women had generally been expected to stay home,
raise children and do housework. Once World War II broke out, however, the lack of men
left a large gap in the labor force, leaving women the only ones able to fill
the roles.
Role of Women: Pre-World War II
Women’s Rights
The rights of women in American
society have undergone enormous change from the early days of the settling of
America by Europeans when women were considered the property first of their
fathers and then of their husbands. Students of the history of women’s rights
point to Mary Wollstonecraft’s 1792 book "The Vindication of the Rights of
Women" as the first clear argument for equality of the sexes.
In the course of the
19th century, many women, prominent among them Elizabeth Cady Stanton
and Susan B. Anthony, argued and agitated for full inclusion of women in the
governing of the United States. One of the great consequences was the ratification in 1920 of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, giving
women the right to vote.
However, this right to
vote did little to change the role of the average woman in public or family
life.
Women’s Roles
The typical jobs that
women held before the war were mainly comprised of nurses, teachers, office
workers, policewomen, clerks, waitress, maids, stewardesses, cashiers and, of
course, housewives. Many states had laws that restricted the jobs women held
and the number of hours they were permitted to work. Most industrial jobs, both
in management and in the factory, were held by men. Men were considered the
breadwinners of the family, and the woman’s primary roles were wife, mother
and homemaker.
Women in Literature and the
Mass Media
Women’s roles as
portrayed in literature and mass media give insight into their lives. Prior to
World War II, most women that the media portrayed were shown as being either in
“typical” female occupations (nearly half of them) or as not having a job at all
(nearly a third). Less than one-fifth of fictional women in stories were
portrayed as having “men’s jobs” such as business executives, factory workers,
police officers, psychologists and such.
The Demands of War
The war changed the
role of women particularly because they were needed to take on the roles that
men had held. Women made rockets, bombs, bullets, cannons, tanks, boats, planes,
guns, trucks and more. Other roles included bagging gunpowder, manufacturing
artillery shells and other explosives, spray painting, welding, working with
chemicals, driving trucks, testing weapons, ferrying bombers and aircrafts and
repairing vehicles.
Call of Men to Military
Service
Because most men were
away fighting the war, there was now a significant gap in the labor force. A
high level of industrial production was essential to the war effort, and many
women joined the workforce to fill the jobs.
Manufacturing Needs During the
War
Labor shortages began
to become a problem in fields such as the skilled metal trades, steel
production, shipping and aircraft and ammunition assembly. However, women were
able and willing to take on the tasks. For women, the jobs were not only more
stimulating than the traditional occupations, but the wages they earned were
higher.
Women in Manufacturing Roles
Not only did the war
provide new opportunities for women in the industrial workforce, it also
provided an impetus for women to re-evaluate their rights and roles. In a sense,
the war reignited feminism: “The war not only paved the way for homemakers to
take on outside jobs but laid down important bases for emergence of the second
wave of feminism.
Women in Literature and the Mass
Media During the War
By 1943, portrayal of
women in media had changed, especially since so many women had joined the war
effort. More than a fourth of women now were shown as doing “men’s work,” and
the number of women in traditional roles had dropped to 33 percent. In 1945, before the
war had ended, the numbers were at a peak, with women shown in men’s roles
reaching almost fifty percent. Only one-fifth of women were still depicted in
their typical roles, compared to the pre-war 44 percent.
Rosie the Riveter
One image that
captured much of this shift in women’s roles was “Rosie the Riveter.” Rosie the
Riveter was based on a real person—two, in fact. The woman who inspired the 1942
song about Rosie the Riveters was a New York philanthropist named Rosalind P.
Walter. However, the famous images of the “Rosie the Riveter” woman seen in the
numerous posters, ads and other art forms was a woman named Rose Monroe. She
wasn’t just a poster girl who posed for the images, though; Monroe was working
as a real-life riveter, building B-29 and B-24 airplanes at a Michigan factory.
Lena Goff, a
95-year-old local nursing home resident, was typical of women who were able to
advance as a result of the war effort. I interviewed her about life during the
war, and she said, “They took all the women and found out that they could get the
job done just as well as men.”
Goff herself worked
as a machinist and quality control inspector at munitions plants along the
Mississippi River. She delights in recalling how many of the male machinists
tried to “snow her” about the quality of their work, until she stepped in and
ran their machining equipment even more skillfully than they were able to. From
that point on, she was respected and obeyed.
Goff, though probably
an extraordinary person under any circumstances, illustrates the grudging
acceptance—and the success—of women in the workforce during the war.
“The ‘Rosie the
Riveter’ movement is credited with helping push the number of working women to
20,000,000 during four years of war, a 57 percent jump from 1940. About 300,000
women were employed in the War Department alone in November 1943.”
Post-War Changes
Return of the Men
When the war ended in
1945, thousands of men returned to their hometowns, and to the workforce. Still
seen as the “breadwinners” of their families, they replaced many of the women
that had been pulled into the workforce. Additionally, many of the
munitions-based jobs that women had held simply ended when the war ended.
The G.I. Bill
After World War I,
when veterans returned home, a recession ensued, leaving millions of people
unemployed and homeless. Twice as many would return home from World War II, and
so the American Legion proposed a “G.I. bill.” The idea was to provide soldiers
with jobs and education when they returned home.
The bill proved a
great success, leading not only to changes in college education itself, but also
to changes in who could be educated. College no longer belonged exclusively to
the upper class, but opened up to women and minorities as well. Additionally the
bill resulted in a huge housing boom and the emergence of a large middle class.
Women Return to Their Roles at
Home
“When G.I. Joe came
marching home, most women returned to domestic roles.”
Not all women, however, were happy about returning to their roles as housewives
and mothers; many had enjoyed both the freedom and the responsibility of working
in industry, but they were largely forced out by the return of the men.
The “Baby Boom”
Of course, not
all women in the workforce during the war were married or mothers, but the
return home of the men resulted in a sudden jump in marriages and children. The
children born in the period of time after the war’s end became known as “Baby
Boomers,” and this contributed to the return of women to the role of wife,
mother and homemaker.
Women in Literature and the
Mass Media After the War
Because of the return
of men to the workforce and the subsequent return of women to the home,
literature and mass media modified their portrayal of fictional women. The
fictional women who were shown in men’s jobs dropped to just 13 percent. Seventeen
percent of the women appeared back in the normal female roles, but now 58
percent were
shown as having no job.
In Betty Friedan's
“The Feminine Mystique,” published in 1963, Friedan attempted to explain what
had become of the working-class women after the war was over. She said that the
image of the post-war women was “young and frivolous, almost childlike; fluffy
and feminine; passive; gaily content in a world of bedroom and kitchen, sex,
babies and home.”
The notion of “Rosie
the Riveter” was gone since the war was over, women having been made to return
to their homes.
The Role of Women Today
The Two-Career Family
Since the 1970s, many
families have moved to a two-career model where both husband and wife provide
income for the family. Responsibilities for raising the children are sometimes
shared, and sometimes handed over to child care facilities. Laws restricting the
kinds of jobs and number of hours that women could work have been repealed, and
legally at least, women are eligible for any job (with the exception of some
military combat roles) for which men are eligible.
The “Glass Ceiling”
One complaint of many
women’s rights activists is that women continue to not be paid at an equal rate
for the same (or similar) jobs that men hold. Additionally, it has been said
that there is a “glass ceiling” which prevents women from rising to the upper
levels of management in corporations. This seems to be more true in traditional
manufacturing companies and service industries, and less true in new industries
and service companies, such as computer manufacturers and software developers.
Although there is
continuing debate on the availability of opportunities for women and the need
for laws to enforce their rights to opportunities, it is clear that this is an
area where equality is not yet a reality.
Conclusion
Before World War II,
most everyone, from employers to the government, held to a belief that there
were basically two categories of jobs when it came to women: those that women
were suited to, and those that they were not suited to. Part of the reason was
simple prejudice; throughout history, men were almost always the aggressive,
heavy-labor workers, and women were the subservient housewives and mothers. Some
people, however, simply felt that women were, for various reasons, not capable
of the tasks found in “manly” occupations. When the men marched off to war,
though, women everywhere decided it was time to take a stand and prove that they
could do anything men could do.
Shortly after the war began, posters
featuring women began to appear; there was a new image of women, and it took the
form of “Rosie the Riveter,” a woman whose picture symbolized the women’s
wartime workforce. Women chose to take on men’s roles for a few reasons: for one
thing, there was a large gap in the labor force, and there had to be someone
around to produce the tools for combat. There was more to it than that, however;
they jumped at the chance to be able to prove themselves capable. Additionally,
many women found higher pay, better hours, and the labor was stimulating.
Once the war was won,
the men came back home. In post-war years, “the percentage of women working in
heavy industry dropped to its pre-war level while women working jobs normally
held by men also found themselves being laid-off as well.”
Many women were laid off; others simply left their jobs to go home. Rosie the
Riveter, the icon created by the mass media to look powerful and rugged, was
gone. In fact, images, advertisements and posters were now appearing with
plain, domestic-looking women. The same propaganda-style ads and posters that
had convinced women to go to war, were now being used to try to convince women
to want domestic roles again.
The “Rosie the
Riveter” movement itself did not have much of a direct impact on women’s roles,
or at least not for some time. In recent years, however, many women have used
the movement to help their case against unequal employment. Women have more
rights than before, and progress has been made against job discrimination and
inequality. Problems such as the “glass ceiling” still exist in the workplace,
but women have turned to previous women’s suffrage and women’s liberation
movements for encouragement and support, seeing that many females of the past
have made a difference for the rights of women. As for Rosie herself, the image
faded with the aftermath of the war, but she made a lasting impression. Women
dealt with many conflicts and challenges during their first experience in the
heavy labor industry. “But they continued to work. And through their efforts,
support for the soldiers never lagged and they contributed to the victory in the
war to end all wars.’ And they changed the workplace forever.”
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Friedan, Betty.
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