Ww 2 Could Not Have Been Won Without the Help of Women Workers

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21 years old. These women were obviously very needed, and they could provide when men couldn’t.

The movement of women from domestic style jobs to defense industry jobs helped greatly to provide the necessary tools of war. (Anderson, 35) The demand for workers in industry jobs exceeded the number of white men available, while most were overseas fighting. The opportunities from women to enter the workforce were increasing. Women were encouraged through propaganda. Rosie the Riveter being a popular encouragement character. “Rosie the Riveter demonstrated that women could do the work that required stamina, physical strength, and coordination, and mechanical and technical competence.” (35) Factories converted from seemingly feminine manufacturing, like baby carriages and lipstick, to hand grenades and camouflage netting.(128) Two years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, 475,000 women were working in aircraft factories. (130) As Doris Weatherford states: “A few years earlier, during the depression, most of these women never expected to work outside the home, let alone have the opportunity for a job that was well paid.”

After the war, women were expected to retreat back into the home and become baby breeders, which can be seen with the baby boomer generation. The end of war brought a time that seemed to be peaceful, but in reality women were unhappy with their lives inside the home as the happy housewife, and missed their time enlisting or working. It should’ve become more accepted for women to work after the war, as they had proven themselves working hard for America during the 40’s. So it’s not surprising that the articles in ladies home journal that gained the most reader turnout were those about “the mother who ran away,” and other stories of women fulfilling careers.(Friedan,44)

The United States was pulled out of the depression with the starting of World War II, and that is because industry was stimulated with the need for war materials. Women were the ones who were working these industry jobs and providing for the war, so essentially, we owe the success of the regrowth of the economy to women, who were the ones willing and able to work. Without the plane’s, machine guns, and other things manufactured by women workers, the war could not have been a win for the allies.