“Draft:Women on the Home Front”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

The end of World War I left European countries in a state of internal conflict and instability, which ultimately sparked international conflict—World War II. The primary culprits of this discourse was Adolf Hitler’s Germany and the socialist Nazi Party. Nazi Germany invaded neighboring countries, such as Poland, while allying with Japan and Italy to further the plan of world domination. France and Great Britain declared War on Germany to begin the second World War. However, during this time, the United States of America was in a state of isolationism due to the Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine, composed after World War I by President Monroe in 1923, states the United States would not interfere in internal affairs of or the wars between European powers. Aside from American policy, the American people had differing opinions on whether or not the United States should have any involvement in the war while still recovering from two major chapters in American history: the “war to end all war”, World War I, and the Great Depression.

This was all changed on December 7th, 1941, “the day that will live in infamy”, as Japan bombed the United States Naval Base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The following day the United States entered a war with Japan. However, President Roosevelt was determined to keep the promise he made to the United States during the 1940 election that no American men would fight in a war with Germany. But, shortly after the United States declared war on Japan, Japan’s allies, Nazi Germany, declared war on the United States. President Roosevelt felt there was no choice but to enter the war. On December 8, 1941, more people enlisted in the military than any other day in history. There was a sense of anger among American people. In a letter written by General Dwight Eisenhower to Adolf Hitler, Eisenhower forewarned the Germans, "beware the fury of a roused democracy" (Stone).

Mass amounts of men enlisted to serve overseas leaving thousands of jobs unfulfilled at home. Without men working in various industrial labor fields, the United States was lacking the ability to support its troops overseas. However, the United States had a “secret weapon” on the home front—women. Despite women initially experiencing resistance entering positions labeled as “men’s work”, women one by one left their traditional roles and managing household to enter these fields. From working in industry to volunteering, the assistance of women was a crucial component in the success of the United States in World War II.

Need for Working Women

Sixteen million U.S. men set off to fight in World War II. That means there were roughly sixteen million, job left by departing soldiers. This tremendous gap in the labor force meant unprecedented opportunities for women. A total of five million women entered the workforce between 1940-1945. These jobs provided opportunities to move into positions previously done by men, including factory work, office jobs, and even military service. The U.S. War Manpower Commission, WMC, was created to mobilize Americans for a total war effort which called for the help of the public.

Woman Power Movement

Another campaign launched by the Department of Labor was the “Woman Power” movement. The “Woman Power” campaign, established the fact that not only was it necessary for women to work, but it is an entirely normal thing for women to work, under a wartime economy. “Woman Power” also convinced men, as well as women, that the more women work, the sooner the United States would win the war. The extensive propaganda campaigns were necessary in order to change public attitudes about women's roles left over from the previous decade.

Balancing Work-Life

As the need for women in the workforce increased so did the problems they faced at home. Many mothers entering the workforce had a difficult time trying to both work and take care of their children. At the start of World War II, childcare was not yet provided to working mothers and it was Eleanor Roosevelt’s urging her husband President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to approve the first U.S. government childcare facilities. These facilities were finally approved under the Community Facilities Act of 1942 after which seven centers each servicing 105,000 children were built. The First Lady also urged for industry leaders to create more childcare facilities for their workers. Even with the new facilities being built under the new act, there still was a need for childcare among working mothers. New working women also face cultural resistance within the traditionally male-dominated environments. Many men were worried that the demands of war would make women too masculine. So, in an effort to reassure the men in industry, factories gave female employees lessons on how to apply makeup to maintain their femininity. Cosmetics were never among the rationed products during the war.

Minority Groups

Minority woman also faced problems within in the evolution of the workforce. For African American women, many struggled to find work in the defense industry and found that many white women were unwilling to work beside them if they did find a job in the industry. The new factory work allowed African American women to escape their traditional labor as domestic servants and earn better wages. Many were fired after the war however and forced to resume their work as maids and cooks. Japanese American women in the western states had little access to new job opportunities due to the policy of Japanese internment that had resettles then into remote locations. These women were forced into cramped, converted barns and lived with as many as eight people in a room.

Industrial Work

Since so many men were leaving for the war, women had to step in and fill their jobs in industries such as iron and steel, automobile, and munitions. The biggest contributions of women can be seen in the iron and steel industries and the automobile industry, where the percentages of women rose dramatically.

Increase in Production

The war saw a dramatic increase in women’s employment from 5.1 million in 1939 to about 7.25 million in 1943. Between 1940 and 1944 women in the iron and steel industry rose from 6.7 percent to 22.3 percent and from 5.7 percent to 24.4 percent in the automobile industry. Now obviously iron and steel are crucial for the war effort for ammunition and weaponry overall, but what is not quite as obvious is how crucial women were with the automobile industry. Women, along with their contributions to steel and iron, were helping to build the necessary vehicles for the war effort and were crucial in turning the automobile industry into a piece of the United States war machine. Since World War II was a total war, the automobile industry shifted from producing automobiles to producing tanks, airplanes, military vehicles, etc. This is yet another case where without women the United States could not have won the war.

Various Works of Women

Most of World War II was fought in the air, therefore there was a considerable need for planes and aircraft. Women filled that role. In 1943 more than 310,000 women joined the United States aircraft industry, making up 65 percent of that industry’s workforce compared to just 1 percent in pre-war years. Every facet of industry necessary for winning the war women were able to contribute to and help the United States be best equipped to win. Much of the work done by women was in factories producing munitions, building ships, airplanes, working in auxiliary services as air-raid wardens, fire officers, evacuation officers, drivers of fire engines, trains and trams, and as conductors and nurses.

Sacrifices for Work

The work done was not easy and many women had to sacrifice and balance their responsibilities at home and at work. Many women worked a “double burden” of having to balance the responsibilities of home and work, which was made difficult by the shortage of resources such as housing, transportation, and child care brought on by the war. All this made difficult since most defense plants operated around the clock and were open six days a week. Women had to sacrifice much of their time at home and childcare for the war effort, showing their patriotism and overall dedication to the war effort. Without the contributions of women in industry the United States military would not have had near enough resources it needed to win the war and the end result would have looked a lot different. Without women’s contributions to industry and their work producing munitions and other resources necessary for the war effort the United States would not have won the war.

Military Service

With the increase in opportunity for women in industrial jobs also came an increased need for them in the military. Collectively they drove trucks, repaired airplanes, worked as lab technicians, rigged parachutes, and even test-flew newly repaired planes. The new need for women to serve in the military and its different branches became essential to the war both for supplies and personnel. General Eisenhower himself felt that he could not have won the war without the aid of the women in uniform stating, “The contribution of the women of America, whether on the farm or in the factory or in uniform, to D-Day was a sine qua non of the invasion effort.” Sine qua non used here to mean something that is absolutely indispensable or essential in Latin.

Women's Army Corps

The Women’s Army Corps, or WAC, had women working in more than 200 non-combatant jobs stateside and the women who served in this corps had full military status along with the enlisted men within the army branch itself. Alyce Dixon, one woman who served in WAC, was assigned to the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion which was the very first all-female, all black unit in the army. This battalion was tasked with clearing the backlog of undelivered mail in Birmingham, England. Within this unit, there were 900 women who by the end of the war had cleared a total of 90 billion pieces of mail. They were essential in keeping communication flowing between soldiers at the front and their families back in the states. The hardest pieces of mail to handle according to Dixon were the letters to be returned to loved ones due to a soldier’s passing.

WAVES

The Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, WAVES, were held at the same status as male naval reservists. The term “emergency” was used in the title to imply that the acceptance of women was due to unusual circumstances and at the end of the war would not be allowed to continue in Navy careers. WAVES was put into action two months after the start of WAC due to the convincing of Congress by Eleanor Roosevelt. A year after its creation, WAVES had 27,000 members with positions in clerical work, aviation, medical professions, and communications. Susan Ahn Cuddy, a Korean American woman, became the first woman gunnery officer and trained naval aviators to fire a .50- caliber gun.

USMCWR

The United States Marine Corps Women’s Reserve, USMCWR, had women serving in more than 200 jobs traditionally filled by men. These jobs included photographers, parachute riggers, cooks, control tower operators, and auto mechanics. The USMCWR had 20,000 women serving in the Marine Corps by the end of the war. These women joined this corps with one goal and reason: “To release a marine to fight.”

WASPS

The lesser known role women played in the war was that of the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots, aka the WASPS. The first WASP class was considered the “guinea pig” class because the Air force leaders were not sure if the women were going to be able to handle what was to be expected of them. These women ferried planes from factories to bases, transported cargo and participated in simulation strafing and target missions, and collectively accumulated 60 million miles in flight distances and freed thousands of male U.S. pilots for active duty. They started out flying civilian AT-6 planes and the P-51 mustang, which was the most dominantly used aircraft during WWII, some even were granted access to fly the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress which was one of the many bomber planes used at the time. Their one stipulation was that they were not granted permission to fly over the ocean. Considerably on of the more dangerous ways for women to serve, a little more than 1,000 women served as WASPS and 38 of them lost their lives during the war. Even with the danger and the loss of life, the WASPS were considered civil service employees and did not have military status. The fallen WASPS were granted no military honors or benefits and did not receive full military status until 1977.

The Coast Guard

The women who joined the Coast Guard were known as the SPARs, which stood for the Latin phrase used by the main Coast Guard branch "Semper Paratus” or “Always Ready”. The women who joined were tasked with typing discharge papers for every soldier leaving the war, including their own discharge papers at the end of the war. Of the 12,000 women recruited to serve as SPARs, only 5 were African American enlistees.

Nursing Corps

In WWII, there were two primary nursing corps: the Army Nursing Corps and the Navy Nursing Corps. Within these corps there were more than 59,000 American nurses. They worked closer to the front lines in the “chain of evacuation,” under fire in field and evacuation hospitals, hospital trains and ships, and as flight nurses on medical transport planes. Their skill and dedication contributed to the extremely low post-injury mortality rates among American military forces in every theater of the war. Fewer than 4% of the American soldiers who receive medical care whether in the field or evacuation died from their wounds or disease due to the aid of the nurses. The army Nursing Corps accepted only a very small amount of African American nurses. At the end of the war, only 479 African American nurses were serving in a corps of 50,000 due to the quota system imposed by the segregated Army. The very first African American medical unit to deploy overseas was the 25th Station Hospital Unit containing just 30 nurses. This unit was deployed to Liberia to aid the troops there protecting airfields and rubber plantations, in 1943. In 1945, the first ever flight nurse, Ensign Jane Kendeigh, set foot on an active pacific battlefield in Iwo Jima.

Influence of Propaganda

As the need for women in the workplace increased, various propaganda techniques were utilized in order to persuade people's attitudes and beliefs. Propaganda campaigns targeted women in forms of posters, billboards, newspapers, advertising, films, and radio announcements to join the work force. A series of influential techniques consisted of bandwagon, testimonial, plain folks, catchy slogans and more.

Rosie the Riveter

Women in the workplace was very controversial from the start. Not all Americans were on board with the idea of women taking over the workplace. In order to combat this issue, the U.S. Department of Labor created multiple propaganda movements to recruit women to work in defense industries. The most famous of these campaigns is the iconic Rosie the Riveter. Rosie’s image was plastered on newspapers, posters, photographs and articles. The campaign stressed the patriotic need for women to enter the workforce.

Increasing Support on the Home Front

A challenge arose when the social stigma that had been attached to the idea of women working had to be diminished. Many husbands at the time were unwilling of allowing their wives to work. Propaganda was a solution for this issue. Middle-class, white women were chosen to be the face of much of the wartime propaganda. The campaigns praised the women who had taken roles in the work force and then glamorized the idea of war work. Images on posters and billboards displayed women as strong, competent workers. The WMC declared, "Women Workers Will Win the War" to show that the war would not be won if women did not provide a role in it. Women felt compelled to participate in the wartime efforts in order to provide for their country and family. These forms of propaganda increased the amount of female workers in various fields by significant amounts.

Postwar Transformation

When men returned from war, many of the American people feared that there would be an economic depression when the wartime economy shut down; with this fear, many women were fired and forced to return to their lives of caretakers in order to provide jobs to the returning veterans. However, there were a small percentage of women who were given the opportunity to keep their job, with this being said many of the women still decided to quit anyway. The women who weren’t fired usually ended up quitting because they were pressured by society—specifically by psychiatrists, psychologists, and a lot of well established writers—to quit their jobs and return to the life of a caretaker.

Pink Collar

For the women that refused to go back to a life solely dedicated to care taking, they took up the only jobs that socially accepted and allowed women to work— the pink collar workforce. The pink collar work force comprised of jobs such as secretaries, waitresses, typists, and other clerical jobs. These jobs were a huge transition for women; they went from having a job that they enjoyed which paid well, to a job that brought them less joy and less pay. These women chose to work these jobs in order to continue this strive towards independence and acceptance as equals.

Aside from the pink collar jobs, women also attempted to push the boundaries of what they could do. Some of the women could not stand the jobs that were available to them due to the constant feeling of subordination and lack of self worth. In attempts to fix this they decided to join the world of enterprising.

Enterprises

Even though women were such a strong driving force for the U.S during WWII, they still got pushed down to a subordinate position in the workforce when the men returned from war. Not only were women fired from their jobs, but they were also influenced by society to essentially forget the social progress they gained during the war and return to being homemakers. The school systems even pressured young girls to pursue careers as homemakers through classes such as domestic science. Women, however, pushed past social norms and innovated to make their own money while still taking care of their families. They partook in enterprises. These enterprises were a way for women to work during their free time from their own homes. They invited other women into their homes to sell products such as Tupperware. This was a way for women to push social norms while still taking care of their loved ones. These outside jobs also helped their families live a middle class lifestyle—the men made money to pay the bills, and the women made money to pay for luxurious gifts and the extras that their family wanted.

Conclusion

American women gained a significant role at the start of World War II on both the home front and battle line. World War II was an influential time that allowed women to break out of their traditional gender roles as mothers and housewives. These women were able to balance not only their traditional roles, but also the roles that were brought on upon the war. They served as the backbone of the country in order to maintain the economy and provide for society while the men departed for war. Without the help of women, the United States would not have been as prepared or successful as they were during World War II.

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