Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff Mob Never Told You from how stupp
Speaker 1: works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline,
Speaker 1: I'm Kristen, and we are publishing this episode three days
Speaker 1: after the seventieth anniversary of D Day, which is basically
Speaker 1: the beginning of the in for World War Two. And
Speaker 1: so to bring the focus the giant focus of World
Speaker 1: War Two into our podcast, we wanted to take a
Speaker 1: look at women during World War two, specifically working women
Speaker 1: during World War Two, because oftentimes in the podcast we
Speaker 1: will reference how this was a huge period for women.
Speaker 1: Women were entering the workforce like never before. They were
Speaker 1: leaving the homes, both single and married women, and going
Speaker 1: to work in factories and munitions operations, and as we'll
Speaker 1: look into a couple of other really interesting positions. And
Speaker 1: so then the question is was this period such a
Speaker 1: watershed for women's employment outside of the home, Because we
Speaker 1: do cite it so often, it's almost a knee jerk
Speaker 1: reflex to say, well, world War two, women leave the home, hooray,
Speaker 1: and then we all live happily ever after. But there
Speaker 1: have now been more recent revisionist histories taking a closer
Speaker 1: look at the permanence of these labor shifts and have
Speaker 1: found that it might not have been as much of
Speaker 1: a watershed as we thought. So let's give a quick
Speaker 1: rundown though of World War two the timeline to give
Speaker 1: you a reference for when all of this is happening. Yeah,
Speaker 1: don't worry, We're not gonna walk you through the entire war,
Speaker 1: so don't don't turn off the podcast. We're just going
Speaker 1: to sprint through the war. We're going to sprint through
Speaker 1: the war. So um. For the Chinese, the war World
Speaker 1: War two began in ninety one when Japan invaded northeast Stern, China.
Speaker 1: For Europeans, the war began in nineteen thirty nine when
Speaker 1: Germany invaded Poland. And for Americans, as we well know,
Speaker 1: World War two began on December seventh, nineteen forty one,
Speaker 1: when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. And we time this
Speaker 1: podcast four d Day, which commemorates the Battle of Normandy,
Speaker 1: which started on June six in nineteen forty four and
Speaker 1: lasted through August. And it's considered the beginning of the
Speaker 1: end of the war because after the Battle of Normandy,
Speaker 1: the Nazi Germany strongholds were starting to fall like dominoes
Speaker 1: across Europe, and so by May nineteen forty five, the
Speaker 1: war in Europe ended, and in the Pacific, the war
Speaker 1: ended in August nineteen forty five with the nuclear bombing
Speaker 1: of Nagasagi in Hiroshima, Right. And so by nineteen forty five,
Speaker 1: when you're looking at the US specifically, there were twelve
Speaker 1: point two million US military personnel, many of whom were
Speaker 1: volunteers and some of whom were women. And the US
Speaker 1: itself just specifically, the US experienced more than four hundred
Speaker 1: and seven thousand military casualties during the war. And so
Speaker 1: with all of these millions of people involved in the military,
Speaker 1: so many people overseas, so many casualties, we wanted to
Speaker 1: look at the home front. What were the women folk
Speaker 1: doing while all of the men folk were out fighting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and not to discount all of the incredible roles that
Speaker 1: women were filling in the military abroad and you know,
Speaker 1: doing their part to fight for Allied freedom. But we
Speaker 1: wanted to take this opportunity to talk about the home
Speaker 1: front too, because I don't think it gets quite as
Speaker 1: much attention. So what's going on at this time while
Speaker 1: you know, soldiers are fighting in Europe and elsewhere, is
Speaker 1: that there's rationing happening to conserve limited resources, especially food, rubber,
Speaker 1: and steel. You also have the militarism and pro America
Speaker 1: propaganda seeping into all corners of entertainment and pop culture.
Speaker 1: You know, you have war themed movies, radio shows, songs,
Speaker 1: comic books. If you look at Classic Superman and Wonder Woman,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of you know, kind of war themes
Speaker 1: of going and fighting the Nazis. Yeah, even even Disney
Speaker 1: we talked about in our Disney episode. Even Disney did
Speaker 1: a Donald Duck send up of Hitler. So even even
Speaker 1: Donald Duck was involved in World War Two. And you know,
Speaker 1: when you look at families as a whole, they definitely
Speaker 1: were a part of the war effort on the home
Speaker 1: front for sure. Um through various propaganda campaigns, families were
Speaker 1: encouraged to recycle materials, even down to waist fats. So
Speaker 1: after you fry up that bacon, don't forget to save
Speaker 1: the fat and it's and my mother definitely still does that.
Speaker 1: She puts the bacon fat and a tin can and
Speaker 1: puts it in the fridge so she can use it
Speaker 1: to cook green bean, not to make explosives, not to
Speaker 1: make exploits. In World War two, Um, you were also
Speaker 1: asked to to recycle scrap metal create victory gardens by
Speaker 1: war bonds ration in list of course that's a huge one.
Speaker 1: And stop spreading those war rumors because remember all those
Speaker 1: posters that said things like loose lips sink ships, And
Speaker 1: they had all these sexist posters to about like men
Speaker 1: sitting around smoking cigars discussing war strategy, and like a
Speaker 1: woman listening from the background, like, hey, don't talk about
Speaker 1: the war in front of the lady. That he's such
Speaker 1: a war gossip, such a war gossip. But I mean
Speaker 1: speaking of victory gardens. Um, this was a huge thing.
Speaker 1: This was a huge part of that whole food ration
Speaker 1: ng aspect. And in nineteen forty four alone, twenty one
Speaker 1: million families had planted seven million acres of victory gardens
Speaker 1: that yielded eight million tons of vegetables. Can you imagine?
Speaker 1: Uh No, I can't imagine, because now we are so
Speaker 1: I feel like our even even in suburbia back then,
Speaker 1: you know, you have all these victory gardens popping up,
Speaker 1: and I feel like it's so rare these days that
Speaker 1: we see that kind of suburban and more urban gardening.
Speaker 1: Um although there have been revivals of it in pockets
Speaker 1: around the country here and there. But I do remember
Speaker 1: learning about victory gardens for the first time Caroline while
Speaker 1: reading the American Girl series about Molly, because she was
Speaker 1: she was my favorite American girl doll, even though I
Speaker 1: owned Samantha. But I liked Molly the most because she
Speaker 1: grew up during World War Two and for some reason,
Speaker 1: as a child, I was very fascinated with that time
Speaker 1: period interesting and I loved the idea of the rationing
Speaker 1: and growing a victory garden just like Molly. All these things. Anyway,
Speaker 1: apparently I'm a woman after my time. Um. Well, getting
Speaker 1: getting into what really the focus of our episode today
Speaker 1: will be about is we also have to talk about
Speaker 1: the millions of new jobs that were created to support
Speaker 1: the military's efforts here in the US on US soil.
Speaker 1: As a result of all these jobs, there was a
Speaker 1: large scale migration to city centers, industrial centers, and all
Speaker 1: of this increased industrial activity led to more opportunities for
Speaker 1: good paying war work for African Americans and for women.
Speaker 1: And if you want to look at a great example
Speaker 1: of someone who fits into both of those categories. Mary
Speaker 1: mclaude Bethune, who was the president of the National Association
Speaker 1: of Colored Women and founder of the National Council on
Speaker 1: Negro Women, helped to publicize the availability of new job
Speaker 1: opportunities through Black women's clubs and publications, and she also
Speaker 1: promoted greater opportunities for women of color as a consultant
Speaker 1: to US government agencies on labor matters and female officer candidates.
Speaker 1: And even outside of paid employment, women were also rushing
Speaker 1: to volunteer their services. So you have women's auxiliary organizations
Speaker 1: forming to volteer for the military and civilian civil defense organizations.
Speaker 1: You also have a lot of women training to drive ambulances,
Speaker 1: fight fires, provide emergency medical treatment, become drivers for the
Speaker 1: Red Cross, and motorcycle couriers. I mean it sounds like,
Speaker 1: really this is also an opportunity when a lot of
Speaker 1: cool kinds of jobs, whether paid or unpaid, are popping
Speaker 1: up for women. Because this came up to in our
Speaker 1: episode on firefighting women a while back, when you see
Speaker 1: the spike in women's participation in local firefighting departments during
Speaker 1: World War Two because the men are off fighting Nazis,
Speaker 1: so the women have to stay home to fight the fires, right,
Speaker 1: somebody has to put out the fires, and I mean
Speaker 1: it's it's a shame that it took a war for
Speaker 1: women to be able to do that in any sort
Speaker 1: of official capacity. But anyway, let's look at the numbers,
Speaker 1: shall we. So before the war in the United States,
Speaker 1: eleven point five million women were working, so already there
Speaker 1: was definitely a strong female presence in the U. S. Workforce.
Speaker 1: But during the war we always hear about this massive
Speaker 1: influx of women getting jobs. So six million at least um. Now,
Speaker 1: during the war, as we often hear about this massive
Speaker 1: influx of women into jobs. During World War Two, we
Speaker 1: have over six million new women entering the workforce, around
Speaker 1: half of whom are working in the war industries. And
Speaker 1: so between nineteen forty and nineteen forty five, the female
Speaker 1: percentage of the U. S workforce increased from twenty seven
Speaker 1: percent to nearly thirty seven percent. And from the end
Speaker 1: of nineteen forty three through early nineteen four, during the
Speaker 1: peak of war production, around fifty of US women were employed.
Speaker 1: So this is where why you hear all the time
Speaker 1: about how this was unprecedented for you know, women's participation
Speaker 1: the workforce right, And you know, there there is the
Speaker 1: whole pay aspect that women basically provided cheap labor while
Speaker 1: the men were gone. I mean, they rarely made more
Speaker 1: than of what the men had earned. But think about it,
Speaker 1: these jobs were paying higher salaries than the jobs that
Speaker 1: were traditionally categorized as women's work, the work that was
Speaker 1: acceptable for women to do outside of the home, things
Speaker 1: like being a teacher, being in domestic service, clerical work, nursing,
Speaker 1: stuff like that. UM and I thought it was interesting.
Speaker 1: There was one study we looked at that that highlighted
Speaker 1: women's participation in the auto manufacturing and electrical manufacturing industries. Specifically,
Speaker 1: they pulled out just this information UM and pointed out
Speaker 1: that in women made up twenty two point four percent
Speaker 1: of auto manufacturing industry workers. And they also made up
Speaker 1: of the United Auto Workers Union. And that's a whole
Speaker 1: other aspect to that's so cred goal because during World
Speaker 1: War Two the UAW had two hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 1: female members. That's huge. It even established a Women's bureau
Speaker 1: in its War Policy Division that in nineteen forty four
Speaker 1: addressed pay inequalities between male and female workers. And the
Speaker 1: auto sector is a standout example because prior to the war,
Speaker 1: there were very few women working in that type of
Speaker 1: manufacturing compared to electrical engineering, which actually employed a lot
Speaker 1: of women before the war. But if you look at
Speaker 1: nineteen ten in the auto industry, only three percent of
Speaker 1: it was comprised by female workers. Yeah, and so going
Speaker 1: over to the electrical manufacturing industry, um, comparing that to
Speaker 1: auto in women made up forty seven point five per
Speaker 1: cent of those workers, and they made up of the
Speaker 1: United Electrical Workers unions, so they definitely had a voice.
Speaker 1: They might have been in sort of an unfortunate the
Speaker 1: temporary work situation. I don't think they quite knew at
Speaker 1: the time how temporary would end up being, but they
Speaker 1: had a voice while they were there. And if you
Speaker 1: just look at manufacturing across all of those different industries,
Speaker 1: women's employment grew one during World War Two. So looking
Speaker 1: at some other specific types of jobs that women were doing,
Speaker 1: I found some articles on women being computers. Yes, women
Speaker 1: as computers, not women programming computers, but actually being human computers. Right.
Speaker 1: And what's so interesting about this line of work is
Speaker 1: that it was kind of secret. It was kind of
Speaker 1: a top secret wartime work mission in nineteen, hundreds of
Speaker 1: women were recruited to work as computer tours, and they
Speaker 1: were targeted for their math skills. Usually they had either
Speaker 1: studied or majored in math in college. And basically what
Speaker 1: they did as computers they would calculate the weapons trajectories
Speaker 1: for soldiers overseas, often working double or triple shifts um.
Speaker 1: They would use mechanical dusk calculators to solve these long
Speaker 1: lists of equations and then send those results in table
Speaker 1: form to the gunnery officers. And they also were able
Speaker 1: to take into account variable conditions like temperature and air density,
Speaker 1: and even calculate weather an enemy with standing or lying
Speaker 1: in a trench. Yeah, and I mean that kind of
Speaker 1: explains why a lot of this was top secret work.
Speaker 1: And you have people though, like Lila Todd, who was
Speaker 1: an example of a specialist. She was a specialized human
Speaker 1: computer who operated a differential analyzer that calculated shell or
Speaker 1: bombs flight paths as they flew through the air. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, today all of this is completely mechanized and
Speaker 1: you know, can be calculated in a split second. But
Speaker 1: in these early days you have a host of women
Speaker 1: like Lila Todd and others who are are doing these
Speaker 1: important calculations for the military. Yeah, and I did read that.
Speaker 1: You know, there were machines that could do various types
Speaker 1: of calculations are set up the equations, but the women,
Speaker 1: as the computers, were really expected to check the machines accuracy.
Speaker 1: The machines were not to be trusted, and we would
Speaker 1: be remiss so to not mention that. Out of this
Speaker 1: military World War two fueled focus on computing, you have
Speaker 1: the development of the ENIAC, which was one of the
Speaker 1: first electronic digital computers, and it was a group of
Speaker 1: six women quote unquote human computers who had been trained
Speaker 1: during World War Two, Kame McNulty, Francis Biolas, Betty Jean Jennings,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Snyder, Ruth Lichtman, and Maryland Westcoff who were chosen
Speaker 1: to program it. So early stem history in there for
Speaker 1: you folks. That's awesome. Um In, I just this next one.
Speaker 1: I just have like this great montage, this imaginary montage
Speaker 1: in my head of of these women going down the street.
Speaker 1: But in New Orleans they were affected by the war
Speaker 1: because all their conductors left. Women had to work as
Speaker 1: streetcar conductorates. And I just imagined them with like a
Speaker 1: jaunty hat like pulling the whistle going down the street. Now,
Speaker 1: I mentioned manufacturing a few minutes ago. Not surprisingly, if
Speaker 1: you look at the major war industries like metalworking, chemical,
Speaker 1: rubber that saw a major jump in women's employment of
Speaker 1: four hundred sixty percent during the war, and the munitions
Speaker 1: industry in particular heavily recruited women's workers. This is where
Speaker 1: you get all those riveters, all those Rosie the riveters
Speaker 1: lining up. Yeah, and the industry that saw the greatest
Speaker 1: increase in female workers was the aviation industry, which makes sense.
Speaker 1: More than three thousand women worked in the US aircraft
Speaker 1: industry in which represented of the industry's total workforce, compared
Speaker 1: to just one percent in the pre war years. So
Speaker 1: we've established that, yes, there was this influx of women
Speaker 1: into these various industries, some directly related to the war,
Speaker 1: some not so much. But the government didn't just snap
Speaker 1: its fingers and have all these women magically appear on
Speaker 1: the job. Rather, they had to develop a propaganda program
Speaker 1: to sell the idea of women in particularly married women
Speaker 1: working outside of the home. And we're going to get
Speaker 1: into that propaganda campaign, and yes, we are going to
Speaker 1: talk some about Rosie the Riveter when we come right
Speaker 1: back from a quick break. So all right before the break,
Speaker 1: we were discussing the industries that women were entering, all
Speaker 1: of the different jobs that they were taking over as
Speaker 1: the men were going overseas to fight in World War two,
Speaker 1: and how it wasn't necessarily an overnight sensation that all
Speaker 1: of these women entered these various very masculine, traditionally masculine jobs.
Speaker 1: It was as an effort, and during this time the
Speaker 1: government turned to the War Advertising Council, which created the
Speaker 1: Women in War Jobs campaign to stress the need for
Speaker 1: women to do their patriotic duty, walk outside of their
Speaker 1: homes and get a gerb. Jobs that were previously seen
Speaker 1: as super masculine were now compared to housework to let
Speaker 1: women know, hey, you can rivet yeah, And we've we've
Speaker 1: read a lot about this in the book Gender at Work,
Speaker 1: The Dynamics of Job Segregation by Sex during World War Two,
Speaker 1: which yes, it is a bit of a page turner
Speaker 1: and that might not sound like it um And it
Speaker 1: talks though about how World War two really saw the
Speaker 1: extension of occupational sex segregation, where if you were to
Speaker 1: walk into an electrical engineering plant, you would have the
Speaker 1: women doing certain types of tasks that were highly repetitive,
Speaker 1: reliant on a lot of manual dexterity, a lot of
Speaker 1: focus and attention, whereas men would have done jobs that
Speaker 1: required perhaps more physical stamina. And they then go into
Speaker 1: talking about how war work was sold to women and
Speaker 1: the author's right wartime propaganda imagery of a woman's place
Speaker 1: on the nation's production lines consistently portrayed women's war work
Speaker 1: as a temporary extension of domesticity, and jobs that have
Speaker 1: been previously viewed as the quintessentially masculine were suddenly endowed
Speaker 1: with femininity and glamour for the duration. And as a
Speaker 1: result of this propaganda campaign, you also see articles in
Speaker 1: popular media publicizing this need and probably to like adding
Speaker 1: to that glamour effect of saying, oh, hey, no women,
Speaker 1: we need you, come on, come to work. So, in
Speaker 1: for instance, you have a Fortune magazine article headlined the
Speaker 1: margin now is woman power, and which kind of sounds
Speaker 1: like an article you'd still see rich in magazine. And
Speaker 1: in the same year, Newsweek reported that the government needed
Speaker 1: three point two million new workers and quote most of
Speaker 1: these will have to be women. So they were really,
Speaker 1: you know, pushing, pushing this message. Yeah, well you had
Speaker 1: to fill the slots. I mean yeah, I mean it's
Speaker 1: some cheap lady labor. We needed to build planes and
Speaker 1: guns and all sorts of things. And who better to
Speaker 1: build you a plane than a lovely lady named Rosie.
Speaker 1: That's right. So the Rosie the Riveter propaganda campaign was
Speaker 1: I mean, she was a character. She was. She was
Speaker 1: just a character. But I love reading the Rosie mythology
Speaker 1: because some some real Rosie's come up that people say
Speaker 1: that she's based on. Among some other women, we have
Speaker 1: rose will Monroe, who moved to Michigan during the war
Speaker 1: and worked as a riveter building B twenty nine and
Speaker 1: B twenty four bombers, and she Rosie the character appeared
Speaker 1: in various incarnations throughout the war. Um Her origins lie
Speaker 1: around sometime around ninety two, when a Westinghouse artist named J.
Speaker 1: Howard Miller created that we Can Do It campaign, probably
Speaker 1: as part of his company's war work. And she's the
Speaker 1: prototype for the Rosy we think of and the we
Speaker 1: can Do It poster rolling up her sleeve. But there's
Speaker 1: also other Rosie characters during this time. There's a song
Speaker 1: titled Rosie the Riveter that was written by John Jacob
Speaker 1: Lobe and Red Evans, that was released in early nineteen
Speaker 1: forty three, and the lyrics described the role that she filled.
Speaker 1: They said, she's part of the assembly line, she's making history,
Speaker 1: she's working for victory. She's Rosie the Riveter. And that
Speaker 1: is definitely a song I would love to hear. But
Speaker 1: it was supposedly inspired by Rosalind P. Walter, who worked
Speaker 1: also as a riveter on the night shift on a
Speaker 1: course there building the f for You Marine gold winged
Speaker 1: fighter airplane. She later became a philanthropist Lottie Dab, but
Speaker 1: she inspired that. Yeah, And that was not the only
Speaker 1: Rosie the Riveter song. There was also one by the
Speaker 1: Four Vagabonds, and I enjoyed its lyrics that went, while
Speaker 1: other girls attend a favorite cocktail bar sipping dry Martini's,
Speaker 1: munching caviare nice rhyme or vagabonds, there's a girl who's
Speaker 1: really putting them to shame. Rosie is her name, all
Speaker 1: day long with a rain of sean and she's part
Speaker 1: of the assembly line. And come to find out in
Speaker 1: this Rosie the Riveter lore, she also had a boyfriend
Speaker 1: named Charlie who was a soldier off fighting. So she
Speaker 1: was working, doing her riveting, hoping that Charlie could come
Speaker 1: home and then she could retire her red bandana. After
Speaker 1: they get married and she becomes Rosie the housewife. How
Speaker 1: how surprised Charlie would be when Rosie wanted to hang
Speaker 1: onto that red bandanna, And how surprised Charlie would be
Speaker 1: when his wife became a feminist icon. That's right. Well,
Speaker 1: if we look to art and pop culture, we we
Speaker 1: can't forget to mention Norman Rockwell um on Maree. His
Speaker 1: depiction of Rosie appeared on the cover of the Saturday
Speaker 1: Evening Post, and while nineteen year old Mary Doyle served
Speaker 1: as the model for his Rosie, he made some drastic
Speaker 1: changes to her appearance, making her more muscular. And when
Speaker 1: I say that he made drastic changes, I mean if
Speaker 1: you compare his Rosie on the cover of the magazine
Speaker 1: to Michaelangelo's depiction of Isaiah from the Sistine Chapel, Like,
Speaker 1: there's your Rosie, that that big prophet Isaiah on the
Speaker 1: freaking ceiling of that. That's that's Rosie, just in overalls
Speaker 1: and a woman. Hey, he'll take it. Yeah, And and
Speaker 1: and when he's like bending his arm. I don't know
Speaker 1: what he's doing on the Sistine show. I don't know
Speaker 1: what he's doing on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. But but
Speaker 1: Rosie has a sandwich in that hand, something that I
Speaker 1: greatly appreciate. Now for the US government selling this idea
Speaker 1: of going to work was not too tough when you're
Speaker 1: talking to a group of Rosie the riveters, and by
Speaker 1: that I mean younger women who were probably unmarried, might
Speaker 1: have had their you know, Charlie boyfriends off fighting, they
Speaker 1: didn't have kids. It wasn't a crazy idea at the
Speaker 1: time for a woman to work before she got married,
Speaker 1: because I mean you have to remember too that this
Speaker 1: was also the time when you start having what we're
Speaker 1: called marriage bands. We talked about this in our teaching
Speaker 1: episode a little while ago about how essentially as soon
Speaker 1: as you got married, or if you were married, you
Speaker 1: were barred from being hired by a lot of different places,
Speaker 1: and so you have that eroding and the US government
Speaker 1: was having to make this much tougher sell in this
Speaker 1: era of marriage bands to get married women on the
Speaker 1: job as well. And we read about this in the
Speaker 1: book Our Mother's War American women at home and at
Speaker 1: the front during World War two, and they signed a
Speaker 1: ninety six poll which found that eighty two percent of
Speaker 1: Americans believed that wives should not work if their husbands
Speaker 1: have jobs. And you have to remember that only one
Speaker 1: in ten new women workers during World War two had
Speaker 1: soldier husbands, because earlier in the war there were automatic
Speaker 1: wife exemptions basically like, oh, I got a wife, can't
Speaker 1: go to war because I gotta stay home and take
Speaker 1: care of her or the and and then that gave
Speaker 1: way to like, okay, well, if you have a wife,
Speaker 1: that's son enough. But if you have kids and a wife,
Speaker 1: then you then you're not going to go. And gradually
Speaker 1: those fell away, but it was still pretty common for
Speaker 1: husbands with wives and children to not be called to action.
Speaker 1: But because there was a lot of resistance for those
Speaker 1: women who had you know, civilian husbands who were still
Speaker 1: had jobs and we're working, there's a lot of resistance
Speaker 1: to allowing those wives to war. You have articles like
Speaker 1: this one published in the Nation in headlined America's Pampered
Speaker 1: Husband's basically calling out these civilian guys who weren't keen
Speaker 1: on their wives working, which again that was a lot
Speaker 1: of them basically saying like, hey, guys, you can you
Speaker 1: can make your own sandwiches. Rosie the riverter makes her
Speaker 1: own sandwiches, you can too. It's not a big deal.
Speaker 1: So that was interesting to me to to read about
Speaker 1: how this was one one facet of this whole women's
Speaker 1: work issue that was probably the most challenging for then
Speaker 1: the US war propaganda machine. Well, yeah, because you don't
Speaker 1: think about women's husbands still being hometelling them they can't
Speaker 1: go to work. We do. We just think of World
Speaker 1: War two is this time when it's like the parents
Speaker 1: are gone, you know, the cats away, the mice will play.
Speaker 1: It's like the doors are just open and women are
Speaker 1: like stepping outside into the sunlight, you know, blocking the
Speaker 1: sun from their eyes, going like, I can get a job. Well.
Speaker 1: I wonder though, how many of those women really wanted
Speaker 1: to get jobs too. It was probably a tough sell
Speaker 1: to them as well. But there was also this great
Speaker 1: letter published in that book, Our Mother's War from this
Speaker 1: woman who was married. I don't think she had any kids,
Speaker 1: but her husband was in the military and she had
Speaker 1: gotten uh, some kind of manufacturing job in one of
Speaker 1: the war industries, and she was so excited telling him
Speaker 1: about how she opened her own checking account, and she
Speaker 1: was like, Oh, it's the best feeling in the world
Speaker 1: to be able to write a check and not have
Speaker 1: to ask anyone for permission. Oh, what a what a
Speaker 1: wonderful thing, and what a nice little dig. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: she was like, but she was genuinely overjoyed by it. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: But you know, and that sounds great women women are
Speaker 1: working in their opening their checking accounts, But we didn't
Speaker 1: end up in some amazing equal opportunity, equal working rights utopia.
Speaker 1: And as soon as the war was over. So what
Speaker 1: happened after the war was over, Well, if you think
Speaker 1: about it, you know, we cited earlier in the podcast
Speaker 1: that by there were twelve point two million US military
Speaker 1: personnel involved in the war. Let's assume a majority of
Speaker 1: those are men. So you have all these guys coming
Speaker 1: back and they need their jobs back, right. Yeah. Basically,
Speaker 1: basically after the war, women went home or they were
Speaker 1: expected to go back into traditionally female occupations. And you know,
Speaker 1: most industry analysts and government planners expected them to. And
Speaker 1: not only did they expect women to go back to
Speaker 1: the home or back to their clerical work, but they
Speaker 1: expected women to want to do that, So how surprised
Speaker 1: they must have been when the Women's Bureau of the
Speaker 1: Department of Labor got their survey results back after asking
Speaker 1: women workers about their future plans at the end of
Speaker 1: the war, when they pulled all of these women, they
Speaker 1: found that many wanted to stay, but factories were converting
Speaker 1: to peacetime production and refused to rehire a lot of
Speaker 1: these women. Of the woman women they talked to said
Speaker 1: that they expected to be a part of the post
Speaker 1: war labor force, and eight six percent of those looked
Speaker 1: forward to staying in their very same industry. And when
Speaker 1: you look at the women who were employed both before
Speaker 1: Pearl Harbor was attacked and during the war, of those women,
Speaker 1: so the majority of those women said that they wanted
Speaker 1: to stay employed. These were women who, not to sound melodramatic,
Speaker 1: but they'd gotten a taste of freedom. They had opened
Speaker 1: their own checking accounts. They had been independent either while
Speaker 1: their husbands worked at their normal jobs or while their
Speaker 1: husbands and boyfriends were overseas fighting the war. And how
Speaker 1: disappointing that so many of them were forced out of
Speaker 1: their manufacturing jobs. Well, and one thing that jumped out
Speaker 1: too in that post war report from the Women's Bureau
Speaker 1: of the Department of Labor, it was as though they
Speaker 1: were opening their eyes for the first time to this
Speaker 1: idea of female breadwinners, because they found that out of
Speaker 1: every one hundred married women who were living in family
Speaker 1: groups of two or more people, eleven said they were
Speaker 1: the only wage earner supporting the family group. And so
Speaker 1: they go on to say that quote the state of
Speaker 1: marriage therefore does not in itself always mean there is
Speaker 1: a male provider for the family. How interesting. So this
Speaker 1: is the period that a lot of people are very
Speaker 1: interested in, including us, looking at were was this the
Speaker 1: watershed moment that we think it was? Was this was
Speaker 1: World War two the period that ushered in more and
Speaker 1: more women working. Yes, it was, but it's not exactly
Speaker 1: super cut and dry, because so many women were forced
Speaker 1: out of their manufacturing jobs. But the service sector was expanding.
Speaker 1: So even though women were having to leave certain jobs,
Speaker 1: some of them went home, but some of them also
Speaker 1: transitioned over to the service sector. Yeah. Essentially, blue collar
Speaker 1: women transitioned to be um pink collar women as we
Speaker 1: think of it more today, with pink collar jobs being
Speaker 1: more oriented towards customer service waitresses, clerical work secretaries, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And on top of this two, you have to remember
Speaker 1: the cultural climate of the post war years where you're
Speaker 1: having this baby boom happen. You're having this resurgence of
Speaker 1: you know, traditional domesticity. I'll leave it to beaver with
Speaker 1: the wife at home and you know, the husband going
Speaker 1: out and for the first time too. I mean also
Speaker 1: remember for the war, we had the depression, and so
Speaker 1: this was also a new period where due to the
Speaker 1: economic boom time happening, it was possible for a lot
Speaker 1: more families than it was prior to the war to
Speaker 1: have a soul breadwinner. And that soul breadwinner would have
Speaker 1: in this time, you know, had to have been a guy.
Speaker 1: I mean, it would have been a man going out
Speaker 1: to to earn the wage for his June Cleaver, right,
Speaker 1: And a lot of authors that we've looked at we're
Speaker 1: talking about the defeminization of these manufacturing jobs as men
Speaker 1: came back. And remember at the top of the podcast,
Speaker 1: we were looking at the auto manufacturing and electrical manufacturing
Speaker 1: industries in particular because they had a really high percentage
Speaker 1: of women in ninety five. That drop though, if you
Speaker 1: look at auto manufacturing in particular. Granted it had a
Speaker 1: very low pre war women percentage, but the percent of
Speaker 1: women involved in the auto manufacturing industry dropped from twenty
Speaker 1: two point four percent in nineteen forty five to just
Speaker 1: nine point five percent in nineteen forty six, So that's
Speaker 1: that's not like that's a huge amount of time. In
Speaker 1: electrical manufacturing, it dropped from a high of forty seven
Speaker 1: point five percent in nineteen forty five to thirty nine
Speaker 1: point four percent in nineteen forty six. So it leads
Speaker 1: us back to that original question of whether or not
Speaker 1: World War two really did have a direct role in
Speaker 1: the eventual rise in women workers and even feminism, because
Speaker 1: there's that one major school of thought that we hear
Speaker 1: all the time and we say all the time on
Speaker 1: the podcast that World War two was this watershed moment
Speaker 1: for women's employment, because I mean, we have to acknowledge it.
Speaker 1: From nine to night, the average hourly earnings of female
Speaker 1: manufacturing workers, for instance, rose relative to that for male workers.
Speaker 1: Even though we're still underpaid. We were by the end
Speaker 1: of it less underpaid than we were before. But some say,
Speaker 1: some like Claudia Golden, who has looked a lot into
Speaker 1: this issue. She says, not so much, though you can't
Speaker 1: make that blanket statement at least. Yeah. Golden's been writing
Speaker 1: about this very specific topic for years, and in a
Speaker 1: paper she and her co author were writing about how
Speaker 1: basically states with a higher mobilization of men i e.
Speaker 1: Soldiers heading overseas saw more women getting into the labor force. Okay,
Speaker 1: that makes sense. If you have a bigger gap in employment,
Speaker 1: you're going to have more women fill it um. But
Speaker 1: she actually points out that the impact was strongest among
Speaker 1: those women with higher levels of educational attainment. She says
Speaker 1: that among those with at least a high school diploma,
Speaker 1: almost eighty percent were in white collar jobs, and for
Speaker 1: those with less than a high school diploma, just twenty
Speaker 1: percent were in white collar positions. About seventy were in
Speaker 1: blue collar jobs, and the vast majority of these were
Speaker 1: in manufacturing. And so for those women in manufacturing, remember
Speaker 1: they're kind of pushed out and transitioned into more pink
Speaker 1: collar work. And so it seems like when it comes
Speaker 1: to Rosie, the riveter life might not have been so
Speaker 1: grand for her after Charlie came home, right, because, as
Speaker 1: as Golden points out, she says, Look, by nineteen fifty,
Speaker 1: these women's occupations, both blue collar, white collar, they weren't
Speaker 1: that much different than they were in nineteen forty four,
Speaker 1: except that those manufacturing positions like Rosie the Riveter held
Speaker 1: decreased and the service occupations took their place among the
Speaker 1: lesser educated group. So if you have higher educational attainment,
Speaker 1: you're probably gonna be okay regardless. But it's those women
Speaker 1: who were among the lesser educated groups that are probably
Speaker 1: going to get shoved into poor paying and honestly less
Speaker 1: exciting jobs. They're they're not riveting anymore. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: and and these are probably gonna be similar patterns that
Speaker 1: you will continue to see even today when it comes
Speaker 1: to I mean, what kind of educational attainment and socio
Speaker 1: economic background, how that precludes you to the kind of
Speaker 1: work that you end up in. And I don't think
Speaker 1: that it would take an economist to tell you that
Speaker 1: that kind of pattern between let's face it, more of
Speaker 1: at least educationally speaking, haves and have not. It's probably
Speaker 1: probably persists beyond the World War two era. But we
Speaker 1: bring this up to maybe do a little a little
Speaker 1: revisionist history of our own to add some context to
Speaker 1: Rosie the Riveter, whether or not this really was that
Speaker 1: watershed moment, whether you know all all of the different
Speaker 1: moving parts of women entering the workforce and mass and
Speaker 1: the numbers that we see today. It wasn't just a well, okay,
Speaker 1: wars broken out, here we go. Yeah. It took some convincing.
Speaker 1: And then once once they were in those roles, the
Speaker 1: bulk of the women who were filling those roles were like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'd like to stay. Could I stay? This would be great.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stay, And people are like, no, I can say.
Speaker 1: And to that point though, about World War two's impact
Speaker 1: on feminism, one of the things we read was talking
Speaker 1: about how not so much World War two, but really
Speaker 1: the civil rights movement that lit that fire in terms
Speaker 1: of organizing and demonstrating. And so maybe that's another podcast
Speaker 1: for another time, but this has been our d Day
Speaker 1: World War two commemorative episode. I hope you learned some
Speaker 1: things about that era that you didn't already know. I
Speaker 1: know I did, And I'm really interested in hearing from
Speaker 1: listeners out there who might have a grandmother or a
Speaker 1: great grandmother who who worked during this period. Yeah, let
Speaker 1: us know any any cool photos that you have from
Speaker 1: that time too. I love someone I still love World
Speaker 1: War two era nostalgia. And you can send those emails
Speaker 1: to us and mom stuff at how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: where you can also tweet us or messages on Facebook.
Speaker 1: And we've got a couple of messages to share with
Speaker 1: you right now. So we have a couple of Facebook
Speaker 1: messages to share with you about our episode, fittingly enough,
Speaker 1: on military spouses, and this first one comes from Christopher
Speaker 1: and he writes, I would love to give you some
Speaker 1: feedback from the perspective of a male service member with
Speaker 1: nineteen years experience. Being a military spouse is probably the
Speaker 1: toughest job I know of. I may go into harm's
Speaker 1: way in defense of this country, but I also do
Speaker 1: so willingly, knowing exactly what I'm getting my self into.
Speaker 1: Any spouse never signed up for this. They just happen
Speaker 1: to fall in love with one of us. When we leave.
Speaker 1: They keep the home front all on their own, never
Speaker 1: knowing when they'll hear from us, or if that knock
Speaker 1: on the door is going to be someone telling them
Speaker 1: that their loved one is injured or worse. They need
Speaker 1: to have that time at home to take care of
Speaker 1: the house, the kids, the bills, etcetera. My brother in
Speaker 1: law recently moved in with his wife and I and
Speaker 1: he was shocked at just how much my wife does
Speaker 1: just being a housewife. This creates a lot of stress
Speaker 1: for them. From my own experience, this is the root
Speaker 1: of why so many marriages fail in the military. It's
Speaker 1: that either the service member or the spouse doesn't realize
Speaker 1: this fully until that first serious deployment. That's why I
Speaker 1: recommend that a couple should go through a deployment together first.
Speaker 1: This is also the root of other such problems, such
Speaker 1: as the high rate of infidelity within the military. It's
Speaker 1: due to loneliness. One thing that I took to heart
Speaker 1: were the comments about the stigma associated with the supposed
Speaker 1: laziness of military spouses and the reasons you pointed out
Speaker 1: about the moves and such affecting long term relationships and jobs.
Speaker 1: My brother in law recently moved in with my wife
Speaker 1: and I and he was shocked at just how much
Speaker 1: my wife does being a housewife. This creates a lot
Speaker 1: of stress for them. From my own experience, this is
Speaker 1: the root of why so many marriages fail in the military.
Speaker 1: That either the service member or the spouse doesn't fully
Speaker 1: realize this until that first serious deployment, and that's why
Speaker 1: I recommend that a couple should go through a deployment
Speaker 1: together first. So thanks for that insight, Christopher, and I
Speaker 1: have a letter here from Brooke looking at sort of
Speaker 1: the darker side of what can happen among military spouses.
Speaker 1: But Brooke writes that she was really excited to hear
Speaker 1: the episode on Military Wives. I myself am a former
Speaker 1: military wife. My ex husband was a tanker during the
Speaker 1: thunder run in Iraq and we were stationed at Fort
Speaker 1: Knox after he came back state side. I can vouch
Speaker 1: for most things that were discussed in your podcast, including
Speaker 1: the extramarital fairs. My ex husband was physically, verbally and
Speaker 1: sexually abusive, and I allowed him to belittle me until
Speaker 1: I true really had not an ounce of self esteem
Speaker 1: left over. He came back from Iraq with an STD
Speaker 1: which he blamed me for giving him, and slept around
Speaker 1: with anything that looked his way. It wasn't until he
Speaker 1: slept with his first sergeant's wife, a friend of mine
Speaker 1: the less that I had proof enough to leave him.
Speaker 1: The Army didn't punish to mote or reprimand him at all. Instead,
Speaker 1: they backed him up, protected him, and allowed him to
Speaker 1: stay and listed as a non commission officer. I was
Speaker 1: disgusted as this was not behavior that was deemed becoming
Speaker 1: of an n c O. With more and more stories
Speaker 1: making headlines about these types of situations, I can only
Speaker 1: hope that the armed forces will start to see the
Speaker 1: forest for the trees and deal with these soldiers that
Speaker 1: they should be dealt with instead of leaving the military
Speaker 1: spouses to deal with it on their own. The spouse
Speaker 1: is there to pick up the pieces when they come
Speaker 1: back from combat, but receives no support when there's trouble
Speaker 1: in their own home. Thanks for listening and giving us
Speaker 1: something great to listen to, and thank you Brooke for
Speaker 1: writing in. Yeah, and thanks to everybody who's written into us.
Speaker 1: Mom stuff at how stuff works dot com is our
Speaker 1: email address and to find links to all of our
Speaker 1: social media, every single one of our podcast blow and videos,
Speaker 1: please head on over to stuff Mom Never Told You
Speaker 1: dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Speaker 1: Is it how stuff works dot com