Women's Roles During World War I

On September 3rd 1939 World War II started in Europe. During World War II, more than 16 million American men served in the military. While this large portion of the population was overseas fighting for the United States, women had to do many of the jobs in America normally held by men. Women were considered vital assets to the war effort, and the American government made sure to use their skills and labor in many different areas to win the war. Women contributed to the successful war effort by working society, documenting the war effort, and supporting the soldiers.

Women only worked in their homes caring for their family’s, they never had the opportunity to work outside of their homes in places such as factories or in the government and they had no benefits within the house until the war began. The war

Before World War I and World War II, women at home had the roles of maintaining duties for their family and children, such as cleaning, caring for the house, and cooking for the family. They were more likely judged by their exquisiteness rather than their ability. Just before World War I began, women were beginning to break away from the traditional roles they had played at home. Throughout both World Wars, women in the United States faced similar challenges, however, during the Second World War; women were trusted with much more freedom and responsibility than they had in the First World War.

Women's roles changed in World War II for the better. Whether they were in the military, in which they enrolled in large numbers for the first time in American history, manufacturing tanks, or even just making money to buy war bonds, the U.S. might be under Nazi or Japanese control today without them. The same goes for minorities in World War II. The African American Tuskegee Airmen shot down over 250 enemy planes, and African American leader A. Philip Randolph's demand to outlaw job discrimination, which was brought into action by Franklin D. Roosevelt, paid off in the war production. Native Americans used the Navajo language as code talkers, 13 Latinos won the Medal of Honor, and even Japanese Americans won glory on the battlefield.

The changing roles of women throughout history has been drastic, and none more so than the period during and after World War II. The irrevocable changes that occurred once the war started and women went to work were unprecedented.

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.

Competed with the Triple Entente, and the forefront of which was a rivalry between Britain and Germany

A few roles of women prior to the World War I consisted of cooking, cleaning, and caring for the children. These were the basic fundamental jobs that women were expected of women to do,” (Campbell 1) .During this time men were the sole base of the household income, and the head

The mass mobilisation of an armed force, which after such a devastating Great War and many defeats for Britain needed more strength in numbers looked at women to join the armed forces during the Second World War. At the peak of women’s involvement in the armed forces, 2% of women in the United Kingdom were in the military. At the beginning of the war, the British government created the Auxiliary Territorial Service, putting women in volunteer non-combatant roles. Mostly clerical, to allow men to serve in the front. However, when manpower dried up, they brought the ATS into the Army Act and restricted leave and allowed women into operational areas. Women we able to be involved with heavy anti-aircraft batteries, who did all the work except firing, while some remarked how women should be allowed to as it was as simple as pushing a button the British military regulation disallowed.

It was uncertain to what extent did women’s participation in WWI changed the attitude and position of women in post-war Europe. One thing assured is that women’s wartime efforts were recognized in the years after WWI. In recognition of women’s support during the war, Canada, the United States, Britain, and a number of European countries extended suffrage to women. It seems that the turbulence and the despair of World War I had caused a re-examination of many of the treasured values in many western societies, including gender expectations.

Throughout World War II, the role of women in the United States was rapidly changing. While men were away fighting overseas, the women were left to fill jobs and support America's war efforts. Women were encouraged to take on these new roles through advertisements for the war efforts. They were told that it was their duty to work, and they were really enjoying the feeling of independence and importance. However, once the war was over and the men began coming home, they were left in need of jobs, and this newfound sense of freedom for women would soon be stripped away from them.

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).

A plan that mobilized state and local suffrage organizations all over the country, mainly focusing on those states that were still reluctant on giving women the right to vote. World War I slowed the suffragist’s campaign, but it still helped them to improve their argument. All of women’s hard work and effort towards their cause proved that they are just as patriotic as men and deserving of citizenship as men were. On August 26, 1920, the 19th amendment to the Constitution was finally ratified, which allowed women the right to

The 19th amendment of 1920 is a very important amendment to the constitution because it gave women the right to vote. You may remember that the 15th amendment made it illegal for the federal and state government to deny any US citizen the right to vote, however, this did not apply to women. The 19th

Did WWI open the door for the role of women in society? With women eager to support their men in uniform, they quickly began to fill in the gaps of employment that were previously filled by men. These jobs included positions such as, “bank tellers, bus and ambulance drivers; factory