Before World War II, most women did not work outside the home.
That was always a man??™s job. Lower class women usually worked as maids, laundresses, and cooks in households. Some worked long hours with heavy machinery on factory floors. Women were also paid less then men were. This all changed after World War II. The United States entered the war on December 8, 1941, after the attack on Pearl Harbor. While the men were fighting on the battlefield, they left many opportunities for women to seek. With this expanded horizon of opportunity and confidence, and with the extended skill base that many women could now give to paid and voluntary employment, womens roles in World War II were even more extensive than in the First World War.
By 1945, more than 2.2 million women were working in the war industries, building ships, aircraft, vehicles, and weaponry. Women also worked in factories, munitions plants, and farms. They drove trucks, provided logistic support for soldiers, and entered professional areas of work that were previously the preserve of men.
American women also saw combat during World War II. First they were nurses in the Army Nurse Corps and United States Navy Nurse Corps during the Attack on Pearl Harbor, and later the Japanese invasion of the Philippines. The Womens Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), Women??™s Naval Reserve, and United States Marine Corps Womens Reserve were also created for women performing additional roles. The WAAC, however, never accomplished its goal of making available to the national defense the knowledge, skill, and special training of the women of the nation. In July 1943, the WAAC was reorganized to form the Womens Army Corps (WAC), which was recognized as an official part of the regular army, but not in combat units. The Womens Army Corps replaced the Womens Army Auxiliary Corps. In 1944 WACs landed in Normandy after D-Day and served in Australia, New Guinea, and the Philippines in the Pacific.
During the war, sixty-seven army nurses and eleven navy nurses were captured and spent three years as Japanese prisoners of war. Three hundred fifty-thousand American women served during World War II and sixteen were killed in action. World War II also marked milestones for women in the US military. Carmen Contreras-Bozak, became the first Hispanic to join the WAC, serving in Algiers under General Dwight D.
Eisenhower and Minnie Spotted-Wolf, the first Native American woman to enlist in the United States Marines. In 1943, the first female officer of the United States Marine Corps was commissioned, and the first detachment of female marines was sent to Hawaii for duty in 1945. Although women became more involved in the military during World War II, they were not treated equally to men. Many commanding officers purposely kept women out of combat.
There were also cases in which men falsely accused women of informality. United States women also performed many kinds of non-military service in organizations such as the Women Airforce Service Pilots, Office of Strategic Services, American Red Cross, Cadet Nurse Corps, and the United Service Organizations. Nineteen million American women filled out the home front labor force, not only as “Rosie the Riveters” in war factory jobs, but in transportation, agricultural, and office work of every variety.
Women joined the federal government in massive numbers during World War II. Nearly a million “government girls” were recruited for war work. In addition, women volunteers aided the war effort by planting victory gardens, canning produce, selling war bonds, donating blood, salvaging needed commodities, and sending care packages. In conclusion, World War II had great impact on the lives of women.
Women were greatly affected by these factors, but they also had to adjust to the decline of many of these changes after the war. A government survey in 1947 displayed that 58% of women believed that married women should not work. Nurseries shut down at the end of the war so many women who wanted to carry on working were forced to return home. In addition, employment opportunities returned to their former state, and in 1961 15% of doctors and 3% of lawyers were female.
The Equal Pay Commission suggested that pay should not change or become more balanced, but instead women should look for different jobs so that they would not be in competition with men, and therefore equal pay would not be an issue. Finally, women were still portrayed in their traditionally domestic role by the media. They showed everyone that women were highly capable of doing a ???man??™s job.??™
